Research advances of minimal change disease combined with acute kidney injury

Minimal change disease(MCD) is one of the most common types of pathology for primary nephrotic syndrome, especially in children and adolescents. Patients with nephrotic syndrome are prone to a series of complications, such as infection, venous thromboembolism and acute kidney injury(AKI), etc. In recent years, the incidence of nephrotic syndrome complicated with AKI has spiked markedly. And MCD complicated with AKI is the most common. MCD with AKI shall aggravate patient conditions, compound the difficulty of clinical treatment and bring a worse clinical prognosis. The mechanism of MCD associated with AKI involves a variety of different pathways, including a reduction of glomerular filtration rate(GFR) due to a lower effective circulating blood volume, nephronic ischemia resulting from renal vascular lesions and a direct toxic effect of proteinuria on renal tubules, etc. This review summarized clinical and basic researches in the field of MCD combined with AKI in recent years. It also described its incidence, pathophysiological mechanism, early diagnostic indicators and prevention and treatment principles for a better management of MCD combined with AKI.