What are anti-GBM antibodies and what do they have to do with my vasculitis?

Anti-GBM antibodies are antibodies directed against glomerular basement membranes. Patients with anti-GBM disease (Goodpasture’s syndrome) will present with involvement of lungs and kidneys, so-called pulmonary-renal syndrome. This can include bleeding in the lungs (hemoptysis) that can lead to respiratory failure and bleeding in the kidney (hematuria) that can lead to rapidly progressive loss of kidney function. Goodpasture’s syndrome has to be considered in patients who are thought to have ANCA-related vasculitides (granulomatosis with polyangiitis and microscopic polyangiitis) as those diseases can also present with pulmonary-renal syndrome. Measuring anti-GBM antibodies and ANCA in these patients will usually help distinguish the two conditions although there are rare cases of patients with both ANCA and anti-GBM antibodies.

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