Simultaneous onset of diabetes mellitus and the nephrotic syndrome.

THE MOST important complications of juvenile diabetes are vascular lesions.1 2 In the experience of the Joslin Clinic these complications are rare in the first 10 years of the course of the disease, but the incidence increases to 20% after 15 years' survival. No lesions have been recognized clinically in children under 10 years of age. The nephrotic syndrome has been described as a clinical correlate of intercapillary glomerulosclerosis, a complication which characteristically develops a number of years after the onset of diabetes.3 Recent case reports4 describe the occurrence of the nephrotic syndrome early in the course of juvenile diabetes.