Vasculitis seen by a nephrologist

Systemic vasculitides are an increasingly important group of disorders. Many of these conditions are rarely encountered by general practitioners, and often present significant diagnostic difficulties. In writing this short manual, our aim was to provide easily accessible information. We hope to have helped the nephrologist whose renal involvement lies at the crossroads of various specialties - internal medicine, rheumatology, dermatology and general practice - who only occasionally encounter these problems. We have focused on clinical presentation, diagnostic processes and current therapeutic management. In this way, we hope to help our patients with these potentially devastating conditions by improving diagnosis and therapy. This manual is divided into two parts: a review of recent bibliography on vasculitides and a second, more practical part, in which we present our nephrology department's experience of renal involvement in vasculitides, with a description of the clinico-biological and histological profile.