16 cases of acute renal failure due to leptospirosis

A study was carried out on 16 cases of leptospirosis with acute renal failure (ARF) detected in adult patients admitted into the Medical and Nephrology wards of the General Hospital, Kuala Lumpur, over a four-year period from 1980 to 1983. Most of the cases were male, Malays and older adults. The predominant infecting serovars were L. celledoni (of the serogroup L. javanica and L. pomona (of the L. pomona serogroup]. All the cases survived, including those who required peritoneal dialysis. The sensitised erythrocyte lysis (SEL) antibody prevalence rate of the chronic renal failure cases (10.4%) was found to be similar to that of the healthy population in West Malaysia (12. 7%), confirming the observation by other workers that leptospirosis is not an important cause of chronic renal failure.