Recent advances in glomerulopathy treatment

Jürgen Floege, MD, is a senior professor at the RWTH Aachen University Medical School, Germany. He served as head of the Division of Nephrology and Immunology at Aachen for 24 years. He coordinates the worldwide KDIGO guidelines on the management of glomerular diseases. His research interests encompass both basic research and clinical research.

In which types of primary glomerulopathies have we recently seen the greatest treatment advances?

Jürgen Floege, MD: Undoubtedly, it’s IgA nephropathy, the most common glomerular disease. It’s still a rare disease but relatively common. And there, we have seen major advances.

We now have 2 new drugs that are licensed, where in the past we would have steroids or nothing. Now we have encapsulated, targeted-release formulation budesonide, and we have a dual endothelin angiotensin receptor blocker sparsentan, both being licensed for use in IgA nephropathy. That’s a major advance in our treatment of these young patients.