Clinical and pathological characteristics of adolescent-onset primary nephrotic syndrome in 110 children in a single center / 中华肾脏病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To analyze the clinical and pathological features of adolescent- onset primary nephrotic syndrome (PNS) in children (10 years≤age≤18 years), so as to explore the renal biopsy indications in adolescent-onset PNS.Methods:It was a single-center retrospective observational study. The clinical and pathological data of adolescent-onset PNS (age≥10 years) who underwent renal biopsy in Children's Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University from December 2004 to June 2022 were analyzed retrospectively.Results:A total of 110 children were included in the study, including 76 males (69.1%) and 34 females (30.9%), with the onset age ranging from 10 years to 14 years and 9 months. Forty-nine cases (44.5%) were accompanied by hematuria, including 14 cases (12.7%) of gross hematuria and 35 cases (31.8%) of microscopic hematuria. Twenty-five cases (22.7%) had hypertension, 19 cases (17.3%) had renal insufficiency, and 4 cases (3.6%) had low complement C3 at the onset. Fifty-two cases (47.3%) were steroid sensitive nephrotic syndrome and 58 cases (52.7%) were steroid resistant nephrotic syndrome. Biopsy results showed that minimal change disease(MCD) was the most common histopathological subtype (47.3%, 52 case), followed by focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) in 22 cases (20.0%), IgA nephropathy (IgAN) in 17 cases (15.5%), membranous nephropathy (MN) in 7 cases (6.4%), mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis in 5 cases (4.5%), IgM nephropathy in 4 cases (3.6%), membranous proliferative glomerulonephritis in 2 cases (1.8%), and C1q nephropathy in 1 case (0.9%). Among 44 children with simple type nephrotic syndrome, the pathological type was mainly MCD (77.3%), and 66 children with nephritic type nephrotic syndrome were mostly non-MCD (72.7%), such as IgAN, FSGS, MN, etc. If there are two or more clinical manifestations of persistent hematuria, hypertension, renal insufficiency or low C3 levels, the proportion of non-MCD would further increase to 92.0%(23/25). The pathological type of patient with gross hematuria or low C3-emia was non-MCD. The frequency of hematuria (69.0% vs. 17.3%, χ2=29.619, P<0.001), hypertension (31.0% vs. 13.5%, χ2=4.821, P=0.028) and renal insufficiency (24.1% vs. 9.6%, χ2=4.047, P=0.044) in non-MCD group was significantly higher than those in MCD group. Conclusions:If the clinical manifestation of PNS in adolescent over 10 years old is simple type nephrotic syndrome, the histopathological lesion is mostly MCD, and most of them are steroid sensitive. It is recommended to give hormone treatment first, and then perform renal biopsy if steroid resistance occurs; If the clinical manifestation is nephritic type nephrotic syndrome, the histopathological lesion is mostly non-MCD, especially those with gross hematuria or low C3-emia, or those have two or more clinical manifestations of persistent hematuria, hypertension, renal insufficiency and hypocomplement C3-emia, a kidney biopsy should be performed at onset.