To the Editor:
Dr. Fernando Val-Bernal and his collaborators commented that we have omitted in the bibliography a reference to their work published in the November 2011 issue of Histol Histopatho. We believe that "omitting" is not the word that best reflects what occurred.
We have been working since 2008 in the study of the C4d in glomerular diseases, and in particular in membranous nephropathy. The results were presented for the first time in the XXXVII Congress of the Andalusian Society of Nephrology, held April 16 through 18 2009, and in the congress of the Spanish Society of Nephrology held in Pamplona that same year. The Public Health System of Andalusia recognized them in 2010 in the Bank of Innovative Practices, whose web site may be accessed.
We wrote our work to initiate the process of publication in the summer of 2011 and sent it to the nephrology magazine[Nefrologia] on November 23, 2012. The article by Dr. Val-Bernal et al., was published in the November issue of 2011. It is obvious the reason why we were not able to detect it in our bibliographic reviews; in addition, we did not know of its existence as we had not seen it on any of our meetings.
We are very glad that Spanish colleagues have reproduced our results, which adds value to both works. We deeply regret not having detected the work of Dr. Val-Bernal et al. in those few days and, as a result, not being able to add it to the bibliography.
The work of Dr. Fernando Val-Bernal is really respectable and fact that it has not been included in the bibliography does not detract merit from it.
The merit and respect of works is earned by their virtues - and the work of Dr. Val-Bernal has many-, and that of people, by their acts.
Conflicts of interest
The authors affirm that they have no conflicts of interest related to the contents of this article.
