A retrospective multicentre study of 341 children with persistent/recurrent, isolated haematuria is described. The haematuria was isolated for at least 6 months at the beginning of observation. The duration of follow-up was 2-5 years in 201, 5-10 years in 119, 10-15 years in 19, and over 15 years in 2 cases. Of these patients 47.8% became symptom-free. In 18.4% the haematuria remained isolated; in 13.8% it was combined with proteinuria over 250 mg/day more than 2 years later. The occurrence of associated proteinuria increased progressively with time. It was 8.6% between the 3rd and 5th years, and 37.0% after the 5th year. Renal biopsy was performed because of the symptoms of glomerular disease in 47 cases at an average time of 12 months following the appearance of proteinuria. Proteinuria appeared after a 2-5, 5-10, 10-15 and more than 15 years follow-up period in 16, 23, 6, and 2 patients respectively; 14 of them had Alport's nephropathy. The percentage of more serious azotaemia was 1.7 (creatinine clearance: 10-50 ml/min per 1.73 m2) and 0.3 (creatinine clearance: less than 10 ml/min per 1.73 m2). Mortality was 0.58%. Most of the patients who developed severe azotaemia had persistent microscopic haematuria at the beginning. The prevalence of hypertension was only 1.2%. The time of its appearance was above 5 years in 2 and below 5 years in 2 cases. All these patients had chronic glomerulonephritis. The haematuria was associated with hypercalciuria in 19.9%. In 14.3% of the overall group of patients urolithiasis developed 2-15 years after onset. All of these had hypercalciuria.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Pregnant women were examined following healthy pregnancies at term. Amniotic fluids were sampled before arteficial rupture of membranes using closed vacutainer system. Blood samples were also taken from the pregnants simultaneously. Endotoxin concentrations of amniotic fluids were tested by the semiquantitative Limulus amebocyte lysate. Both amniotic fluids and blood samples were tested for the presence of DNA of lymphotropic human herpesviruses. The DNA of human papillomaviruses were tested only in the amniotic fluid samples. One-third of the amniotic fluids tested were found to contain measurable amounts of endotoxin. Lymphotropic herpesvirus DNA was deteced in every fourth amniotic fluid sample and in every 8th blood sample. The prevalence of papillomaviruses was 7 of 96 samples. No significant correlation was found between the presence of endotoxin and viruses in the amniotic fluids. Epstein-Barr virus, human cytomegalovirus and human herpesvirus type 7 were found more frequently in the amniotic fluids than in blood samples (7 to 1). The prevalence of human herpesvirus 6 and 8 was higher in the blood samples than that in the amniotic fluids. The mean weight of the neonates were not impaired significantly by the presence of either viruses or endotoxin. Possible post partum consequences, i.e. partial immunotolerance to viruses is discussed.

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