Familial interstitial nephropathy without hyperuricemia.

Progressive hereditary nephropathy is described in 6 members of a single family. Renal biopsies, performed in 3 patients, revealed tubular atrophy, interstitial fibrosis, and lymphomonocytic infiltration associated with severe vascular lesions. These features were disproportionately serious when related to age, arterial pressure, and renal function. Similar familial nephropathy has been reported in the literature, generally in association with gout or asymptomatic hyperuricemia. The patients described here had normal blood concentrations of uric acid. It is proposed that the members of the present group of patients are suffering from the same interstitial nephropathy as that described in the literature and that the hyperuricemia found by other investigators is coincidental and does not play a pathogenetic role.