الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Nephrotic syndrome (N.S) is the most prevalent glomerular inury in childhood (90% of the cases), its exact cause has not recisely detected, attention have been directed to the role of immune ystem in the pathogenesis of the disease. The importance of cytokines in renal damage has already been demonstrated, they have been shown to exacerbate proteinuria and accelerate the course of glomerular injury in experimental models of nephritis. TNF-a is one of cytokines known to have effects in regulation of immune response. This study was done to detect changes occurring in TNF-a levels in different pathological types ofN.S, also to correlate between TNF-a levels and the clinical course ofN.S with an attempt to predict the response of nephrotic patients to steroid prior to its usage by measuring TNF-a levels as an indicator of steroid state. This work included 79 patients who were classified into 6 groups (MCNS, FSGS, DMP, IgA nephropathy, MCGN and SLE), ten healthy children of matched age and sex served as a control group. All patients were subjected to the following laboratory investigations.