Diabetic nephropathy : from histological findings to clinical features

Abstract

Diabetic nephropathy is a major cause of end-stage renal

disease worldwide. In this thesis we investigated several aspects of diabetic

nephropathy, including histological lesions scored according to the

pathologic classification of diabetic nephropathy, inflammatory markers, the CNDP1 gene and the carnosine metabolism. Several studies of this thesis used histological and clinical data obtained from an autopsy cohort of patients with diabetes. The renal tissue of this autopsy cohort provided us with the opportunity to investigate more than 100 glomeruli per case and gave us the opportunity to challenge several hypotheses in a unique setup.