CHEMICALLY-INDUCED GLOMERULAR INJURY - A REVIEW OF BASIC MECHANISMS AND SPECIFIC XENOBIOTICS

Contact with many drugs and chemicals can produce glomerular injury. A common sign of such injury is proteinuria. Chemicals and drugs act th rough diverse mechanisms to produce injury, including direct damage to cellular and membranous glomerular components, as well as to renal va sculature. Several basic pathophysiologic mechanisms, including the '' intact nephron hypothesis'' and the ''hyperfiltration hypothesis,'' he lp to explain the mode of toxicity of many chemicals. Furthermore, the y provide a means to understand the basis for renal damage and the pro gression of renal disease once injury has occurred.