In this article, the proposal to rename “Chinese herbs nephropathy” was reviewed. Prolonged use of Chinese herbs that contain aristolochic acid may induce tubulo-interstitial disorders. In our opinion, the “Chinese herbs nephropathy” nomenclature is equivocal, and should be changed to “aristolochic-acid nephropathy”. Professor Vanherweghem, who is the first author to write about this disease, also used the name “Aristolochia nephropathy.”

We report two cases of nephrotic syndrome successfully treated with saireito. The first patient developed massive proteinuria of 5.2 g/day, was diagnosed with minimal-change nephrotic syndrome upon renal biopsy, and rapidly improved with saireito treatment for 2 months to the reduced urinary protein level of 0.3 g/day. Urinary protein increased to 2.0 g/day just after discharge, then again decreased and was brought to remission soon thereafter. The second patient with biopsy-proven idiopathic membranous nephropathy maintained nephrotic syndrome remission for 8 years with the treatment of small-dose prednisolone, an immunosuppressant, and an angiotensin II receptor blocker, then relapsed with 4.4 g/day proteinuria. In this patient, proteinuria was reduced after 4 weeks with the above combination therapy plus saireito to 1.3 g/day, then remitted again soon thereafter. The former patient presented with mild discomfort and opposition when the subcostal region was pressed ; the latter patient presented with apparent discomfort and opposition together with moderate leg edema. Because rapid remission of massive urinary protein with saireito treatment was observed in these patients, we report here and discuss possible mechanisms.
g/d ; Patients ; Nephrotic Syndrome ; sairei-to ; Cancer Remission