Six New York clinicians who hope immunohistology tests for renal diseases "someday will become routine," pled their case in the form of an exhibit. Their effort was awarded the Hektoen Gold Medal for "original investigation."
"Just doing a renal biopsy, for instance, is not enough," Theodore Ehrenreich, MD, told JAMAMedical News. "Special care and techniques in preparation must be used to obtain valuable information."
Tests, illustrated by full color photographs of tissue samples, included complement fixation, measurement of 7S gamma-globulin fractions and electron microscopic analysis. The New York Medical College group gathered experience from over 1,000 renal biopsies done at St. Francis Hospital, Bronx.
Visitors to the exhibit were shown the characteristics of acute glomerulonephritis. These include low serum complement levels, but "intense diffuse homogeneous staining of all basement membranes for gamma-globulin."
The subacute form, they noted, also shows "intense immune staining of the widened mesangium which encroaches on