What does effacement of foot process mean?

In glomerular diseases, podocytes lose the usual interdigitating pattern of foot processes between neighboring podocytes, and this alteration, known as “foot process effacement,” is regarded as a pathologic indicator of podocyte injury.

What causes podocyte effacement?

The major causes (genetic or acquired) of foot processes effacement are impaired formation of the slit diaphragm complex, abnormality of the GBM or adhesion of podocytes to the GBM, abnormalities in the cytoskeleton or associated proteins, and alterations in the apical membrane domain of the podocyte.

What does podocyte effacement mean?

a podocyte reaction to injury or damage characterized by flattening of foot processes due to gradual simplification of the interdigitating foot process; the whole podocyte looks flat due to retraction, widening, and shortening of the processes of each podocyte while the frequency of filtration slits is reduced, giving …

What are the symptoms of minimal change disease?

What are the signs and symptoms of minimal change disease?

  • Swelling in body parts like your legs, ankles, or around your eyes (edema)
  • Large amounts of protein in your urine (proteinuria)
  • Loss of protein in your blood.
  • High levels of fat or lipids in your blood (high cholesterol)

What is the meaning of effacement?

noun. the act of wiping out, erasing, or doing away with something: The gradual effacement of ethnic differences has often been seen as a solution to the difficulties experienced by immigrants.

What does effacement of podocyte foot process?

Injured podocytes undergo effacement whereby they lose their structure and spread out, leading to a reduction in filtration barrier function. Effacement is typically associated with the presence of proteinuria in focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, minimal change disease, and diabetes.

How do you treat minimal change?

Minimal Change Disease is one of the more treatable kidney diseases, especially in children. Therapy almost always consists of a course of oral steroids (prednisone), which is generally effective within weeks. A complete remission is not uncommon, though the disease can come back later in life.

Is minimal change disease an autoimmune disorder?

Secondary causes of minimal disease include autoimmune diseases, medications, cancers, infections, atopic reactions, and other etiologies. Lupus podocytopathy is the most common autoimmune etiology of minimal change disease (Bomback 2016).

Is minimal change disease life threatening?

What is the prognosis? Even in adults, Minimal Change Disease typically has a favorable prognosis. Over 90% of patients will respond to oral steroids, with most of these having a complete remission.

What stage does effacement occur?

Most effacement usually happens during the first stage of labor, when your cervix is dilating to 6 cm. This process can take several hour or days, and will likely be accompanied by early signs of labor such as Braxton Hicks contractions and losing your mucus plug.

What causes effacement?

As the baby’s head drops down into the pelvis, it pushes against the cervix. This causes the cervix to relax and thin out, or efface. During pregnancy, your cervix has been closed and protected by a plug of mucus. When the cervix effaces, the mucus plug comes loose and passes out of the vagina.