Tacrolimus for the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus with pure class V nephritis

The treatment of pure membranous (class V) lupus nephropathy remains unsatisfactory. We studied the efficacy and safety of tacrolimus in the treatment of membranous nephritis secondary to SLE.We recruited 18 consecutive SLE patients (tacrolimus group) with recently confirmed biopsy-proven class V lupus nephritis. They were treated with a tailing dose of oral prednisolone and tacrolimus 0.1-0.2 mg/kg/day for 6 months, followed by maintenance...