[Analgesic nephropathy (AN) with special reference to capillary sclerosis. A multicenter study from the former East Germany].

The incidence of capillary sclerosis in the mucosa of the upper urinary tract was beyond expectation, according to a multicenter study conducted at 11 pathological institutes in all regions of the former GDR from which the following more specific findings were obtained: Capillary sclerosis was recorded primarily from women (1.4:1) in 3.6% of 3,929 autopsy cases (minimum age being 40 years). This result has close to the outcome of a study conducted in Basle, Switzerland, though highest severity (0.33%) and the complete morphological picture of analgesic nephropathy (0.54%) were clearly less frequent, as compared to the above Swiss findings. No reliable conclusion can as yet be drawn regarding the infrequent case of renal pelvis carcinoma. Epidemiological and clinical studies are likely to suggest that an increase in findings might be expected in this part of Germany and might be aetiologically attributable to abuse of analgesics.