Spectrum of renal disease in Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

A series of 380 kidney biopsies performed at several institutions in Saudi Arabia was reviewed and categorized as follows primary glomerular disease, 275; renal involvement in systemic disease, 77; and miscellaneous, 28. The 275 biopsy specimens from patients with primary glomerular disease were further classified and revealed minimal-changes disease in 16 [5.8%], mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis in 80 [29.09%], focal segmental glomerulosclerosis in 96 [43.9%], mesangiocapillary glomerulonephritis in 29 [10.5%], membranous glomerulonephritis in 18 [6.5%], IgA nephropathy in 16 [5.8%], rapidly progressive glomerculonephritis in 12 [4.4%], and postinfectious glomerculonephritis in 8 [2.9%]. Complication of our findings with those previously published studies indicated that the frequency of local segmental glomerulosclerosis in our series is higher than that for most series reported for other countries, while the incidence of IgA nephropathy is relatively low. Another significant difference was a complete absence of mesangiocapillary glomerulonephritis type II [dense-deposit-disease]. Additional studies are needed to further confirm these findings and identify the factors responsible for the differences