Nephrotic syndrome has been described in association with solid tumours,
such as carcinoma of the lung or colon, whilst the relationship between
urinary tract cancers and proteinuria is reported less frequently. We
describe a case of a 75-year-old man with nephrotic syndrome and relapsing
transitional cell carcinoma affecting the bladder. Renal biopsy showed
membranous nephropathy. The patient underwent four transurethral tumour
resections and each time we observed improved proteinuria by 3-4 weeks
after surgery. On the contrary, steroid treatment was clearly unrelated to
this improvement. We conclude that, at least in this case, surgical
treatment of the tumour led to improved proteinuria whilst steroid
treatment was not beneficial
