8 mg/kg/day) to adult patients with the first relapse of MCNS significantly reduced the time to remission and allowed the prednisolone dose to be reduced more than that with prednisolone monotherapy (1.0 mg/kg/day). Matsumoto et al. [8] demonstrated that learn more cyclosporine (2–3 mg/kg/day) after MPT was not only

advantageous for the rapid induction of complete remission, but was efficient for maintaining remission with little evidence of cyclosporine toxicity in adult patients with the relapse or the first episode of MCNS. Hamasaki et al. [9] showed that cyclosporine in combination with prednisolone induced higher complete remission rates than prednisolone monotherapy in children with steroid-resistant MCNS or other types of nephrotic syndrome. Thus, Crenolanib mw cyclosporine combined with MPT may further improve clinical efficacy and safety. According to the guidelines of KDIGO for glomerulonephritis, corticosteroids are recommended as an initial treatment of MCNS in adults with evidence level 1C [10]. However, these treatments require long periods of hospitalization. As shown in our study, the mean LOS in Group 3 was 53.6 days. The long period of hospitalization has been shown to markedly

reduce the QOL of the adult patients [11]. On the other hand, the guidelines of KDIGO for glomerulonephritis and workshop recommendations for cyclosporine described the usefulness of cyclosporine in steroid-resistant MCNS [10, 12]. Cyclosporine was additionally used for the treatment of MCNS in order PF-02341066 solubility dmso to induce sustained remission in some cases. Several other studies have suggested that the long-term maintenance treatment of MCNS with cyclosporine may be efficient and safe at least for a period of up to a few years [13]. In the present study, we attempted to clarify whether cyclosporine combination therapy could lead to the rapid induction of remission and/or shorten hospitalization without severe adverse effects in MCNS adult patients. The administration of cyclosporine to children for the initial treatment of MCNS has been reported previously [14]. However, few studies have been conducted

on adults. Our results clearly showed the benefits of cyclosporine with prednisolone in shortening the LOS without increasing the rate of adverse effects. Furthermore, this treatment protocol decreased the amount of prednisolone Thalidomide used and medical costs. Multivariate analysis revealed that the durations of remission correlated with cyclosporine treatment, which indicated that the cyclosporine treatment has benefits in reducing the LOS and also partly shortening the periods to complete remission. The incidence of refractory nephrotic syndrome is higher in the elderly, and MCNS accounts for ~10 % of all cases of nephrotic syndrome in this population. However, the characteristics of MCNS in the elderly have not yet been established [15]. Older adult patients (>50 years) and younger patients (18–50 years) with MCNS administered oral prednisolone (0.