Treatments to control blood pressure and nephrotic syndrome are still likely to be required. Research is still trying to establish the best treatments to control membranous nephropathy and prevent it from causing kidney failure. The fact that the disease improves spontaneously in some people makes it hard to know whether a treatment has contributed to this. In the UK you may be asked to consider being entered into a trial comparing different treatments. Most nephrologists in the UK otherwise reserve these treatments for people whose disease is severe and likely to cause further kidney damage.
Steroids are a group of chemicals that occur naturally in the body in small amounts.
Steroid tablets are refined and concentrated versions of these chemicals. The commonest type of steroid used is called Prednisolone. Your doctor may suggest you take a course of prednisolone, and will work out the dose depending on your body weight. They are used in the treatment of many sorts of glomerulonephritis including membranous nephropathy, because the immune system is partly responsible for the damage to the glomeruli, although what triggers the immune system to have this abnormal effect is incompletely understood. There is some evidence to suggest that 'damping down' the immune system may halt or moderate the damage being done to the glomeruli , and so prevent the disease from progressing to cause kidney failure.