prevalence of different classes of lupus nephritis in Jordan university hospital

Systemic lupus erythematosus [SLE] is a systemic autoimmune disease involving almost all organs of the body. There is a high incidence of renal involvement during the course of the disease with varied renal pathologic lesions. A renal biopsy contributes towards diagnosis, prognostic information, and appropriate management. To study the prevalence of different classes of SLE using the International Society of Nephrology/Renal Pathology Society [ISN/RPS] 2003 classification in our facility. This study was carried out at the Jordan University Hospital [JUH] in June and July 2011. We acquired an approval for this study from the IRB [Institutional Review Board] of the Jordan University Hospital. We retrieved 36 renal biopsies from our files beginning from 2002- 2010 that have the diagnosis of SLE and they were reviewed and reclassified by two pathologists. Of the 36 renal biopsies, only one was classified as class I, 5 were class II, one was class III, 23 were class IV, 6 were class V, and none of the biopsies were classified as class VI. Class IV was the most prevalent class in the JUH cases with almost equal numbers of class IVS and IVG subclasses, while there was only a single case of class III [IIIS] which is very low compared to other studies