Positive anca Negative kidney biopsy

[Dorothea]

Has anyone ever heard of a positive result on anca (for Wegeners) and nothing showing on the kidney biopsy for Wegeners?

[drz]

Has anyone ever heard of a positive result on anca (for Wegeners) and nothing showing on the kidney biopsy for Wegeners?

This will happen if the Wegs is not active in the area where the biopsy was taken. Maybe they didn't get enough tissue or missed getting a sample from where it was active. Or maybe it hasn't attacked the kidneys yet but might be active in other parts of the body. Such misses are pretty common in nasal biopsy as it is hard to get enough tissues to confirm the diagnosis.

[Dorothea]

Thank You drz. That was very helpful💖

[gilders]

As Drz said, nasal biopsies are not very reliable. Kidney biopsies usually are reliable. But Wegeners doesn't always effect the kidneys.

[vdub]

Totally agree with what has been said above. Wegs can attack most any organ and if the biopsy was performed on the particular organ where you didn't have any involvement it wouldn't necessarily show up.

I can't recall if it was a CT-scan or MRI (I've had many of both) that showed granulomas in my lungs. But, you could ask your doctor to perform one of the tests. The CT-scans are reasonably cheap and are done quite readily, but the MRI is a bit pricey. Your doc would know if one or the other of the tests would be a good idea to check for granulomas.