ABSTRACT
Renal involvement is quite common in systemic amyloidosis and often occurs as the presenting clinical feature of the disease. The major clinical signs are characterized by proteinuria, often in the nephrotic range, with or without renal failure. When present, renal failure strongly influences the natural history of the disease and its prognosis. Dialysis and kidney transplantation have been increasingly employed in the past years to treat renal insufficiency and improve the quality of life of these patients. In order to determine the impact of renal involvement in systemic amyloidosis in Italy and to analyze the demographic characteristics and survival of people affected by the disease we set out a retrospective survey of all cases of renal amyloidosis diagnosed in Italy. Renal biopsy (RB) is still the commonest way to diagnose renal involvement in amyloidosis in nephrology units. The low coincidence observed between Fat tissue aspirate and RB likely depends on a non correct application of the FTA procedure by nephrologists.
