Histomorphological and clinical study of primary and secondary glomerulopathies in Southeast Serbia (20-year period of analysis).

BACKGROUND/AIM Epidemiological studies of renal biopsies have been performed to follow up the incidence of glomerular diseases on a specified territory and to compare the obtained results with results from other regions. The aim of this study was to analyze the frequency of certain histopathophysiological types of glomerular diseases on the territory of Southeast Serbia. METHODS In a 20-year period (1986-2006), 316 kidney biopsies were performed in patients with clinical signs of impaired renal function, in Southeast Serbia. On average 1.6 biopsies were made per year per 100 000 inhabitants. RESULTS Biopsies of adult patients represented 88% of all biopsies, biopsies in children (aged under 18 years) represented 8%, while biopsies of elderly patients (more than 60 years) represented 4% of all biopsies. The predominance of male patients was described with male/female ratio of 1.4. The most frequent clinical manifestation in patients at the time of biopsy were nephrotic syndrome (42.5%), and asymptomatic proteinuria and/or hemamuria (31.3%) and nephritic syndrome (14.9%). The most common glomerular disease was IgA nephropathy with an incidence of 21.5% of total biopsy diagnosed glomerulopathies, followed by: membranous glomerulonephritis (12.6%), focal segmental proliferative and sclerosing glomerulonephritis (10.7%), lupus nephritis (8.4%), nephroangiosclerosis (7.0%), mesangio-proliferative glomerulonephritis (6.1%), minimal change disease (2.8%), mesangiocapillary glomerulonephritis (2.3%). CONCLUSION The frequency of certain histopathologic findings significantly correlated with data from studies that we used for comparison, with the exception of minimal change disease whose incidence in our study was smaller.