D-penicillamine induced Goodpasture's syndrome in Wilson's disease

Abstract

Fatal pulmonary hemorrhages and rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis occurred in three patients with Wilson's disease (hepatolenticular degeneration) who had been treated with penicillamine for 2 to 31/2 years. Light microscopic studies of the kidneys showed severe glomerulonephritis with crescent formation, and the lungs showed intraalveolar hemorrhages. Although the clinical and pathologic abnormalities were those of Goodpasture's syndrome, immunofluorescence microscopic studies in the one case tested showed an interrupted, rather than linear, fluorescence pattern.