Goodpasture's Syndrome is usually characterized by rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis due to autoantibodies against glomerular basement membrane (anti-GBM). This study will examine whether plasmapheresis significantly improves the results of standard immunosuppressive drug treatment of this disease. Patients will be randomly allocated to drug treatment alone or drugs plus plasmapheresis until anti-GBM levels are undetectable. Comparison will be made of the numbers of favorable outcomes and complication rates of these therapies at the end of 6 months of study. Analysis of the balance of efficacy, complications and expense of plasmapheresis in treatment of Goodpasture's syndrome will be facilitated by the results of this study.
