Clinicopathological Observation in 9 Nephrotic Children with Mesangial Proliferative Glomerulonephritis

ABSTRACT

Histopathological findings, clinical picture, various laboratory data and correlation of them to response of the patients to steroid therapy were analyzed in 9 nephrotic who had been admitted to the Seoul National University Hospital during the period of 3 years and 6 months from March of 1975 till September of 1978, and who were confirmed to have pure mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis by renal histology. All patients were followed-up at least 1 year, up to 3 years. Age of the patients at the onset was widely distributed from 2 to 14 years, but most patients, (7 cases in 9) were after the age of 6 years. Selected findings of blood and urine examinations revealed typical patterns of the nephrotic syndrome and there was no case without edema of any degree. Histopathological study showed characteristic glomerular mesangial hypercellularity and lobular stalk widening. According to severity of the glomerular mesangial hypercellularity the patients were divided into 2 groups, one with milder changes and the other with more severe ones. There were no difference of degree of symptoms, laboratory data and response to steroid therapy between the 2 groups of the patients. But the pattern of response to steroid therapy as a whole was conspicuously different from that seen in cases with minimal change lesion. During the observation period, there were 2 cases of relapse, but case of renal failure or death was, absent possibly because the observation period was short. There was no case who developed serious side effect of steroid so as to stop administration of the drug.