Nephrotic syndrome in chronic lymphocytic leukemia: a paraneoplastic syndrome?

The association of malignancy and various glomerulopathies is a well recogn ized phenomenon. We report a case of nephrotic syndrome secondary to minima l-change disease in a patient with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and r eview the literature on nephrotic syndrome in this disorder. Since the rela tive distribution of etiologies differ from what might be expected for prim ary nephrotic syndrome in a similar aged population, we propose that nephro tic syndrome is a potential paraneoplastic phenomenon associated with CLL. We hypothesize a possible etiologic role of different cell surface markers of the lymphocyte to explain the diverse renal histologic manifestations.