A Clinicopathological Analysis of 52 Cases of Renal Biopsy in Children

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To evaluate the clinical manifestations of various glomerular diseases in children, a clinicopathological study was performed in 52 children who had renal biopsy. The type and relative incidence of the glomerular pathologies were analyzed, and the clinical predictability and usefulness of renal biopsy in glomerular diseases were assessed. METHODS: Medical records of fifty two children with renal disease who had undergone percutaneous renal biopsy under ultrasonic guidance at Chungnam University Hospial from October 1995 to August 2003 were reviewed. In addition, we compared the clinical findings before renal biopsy with the pathological diagnosis. RESULTS: The male to female ratio was 1.61 and they were 9.8 2.6 years old on average. The chief complaints for biopsy were hematuria in 22 cases which was the most common (42.3%), proteinuria in 16 cases(30.8%), and hematuria & proteinuria(26.9%). Among the 22 cases of hematuria, there were 15 cases of gross hematuria(68.2%) and 7 cases of microscopic hematuria(31.8%). In terms of histopathologic diagnosis, most of them were primary glomerular diseases(84.6%), which included IgA nephropathy(28.8%), thin glomerular basement membrane disease(25.0%), focal segmental glomerulosclerosis(FSGS)(11.5%), membranous proliferative glomerulonephritis(7.7%), minimal change lesion(3.8%), acute poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis(3.8%) and membranous glomerulonephritis(3.8%). The clinical manifestations and pathologic diagnosis were not correlated. CONCLUSION: The clinical manifestations could not predict the pathological diagnosis. Therefore, renal biopsy would be inevitable in diagnosis of glomerular diseases for effective management and assessment of prognosis.