The spectrum of biopsy-proven kidney diseases in elderly Chinese patients

Studies on biopsy-proven renal disease in the elderly (age a parts per thousand yen65 years) are extremely limited in China. The aim of this study was to examine the spectrum of renal diseases and their clinical presentations in elderly patients undergoing renal biopsy. All native renal biopsies (n = 851) performed in patients aged a parts per thousand yen65 years from January 2003 to December 2012 were retrospectively analyzed. The results were compared with a control group of 28 574 patients aged 18-64 years undergoing renal biopsy over the same period. These 851 patients included 549 males and 302 females. Primary glomerular diseases (53.94%) occurred more frequently than secondary glomerular diseases (36.49%). The clinical manifestations were nephrotic syndrome (NS) in 29.49% of the patients, chronic renal failure in 24.68%, proteinuria and hematuria in 13.28%, proteinuria in 10.93%, acute kidney injury (AKI) in 10.81% and AKI and NS in 8.93%. Membranous nephropathy (MN) was the most frequent diagnosis (28.79%), followed by diabetic nephropathy (DN, 9.75%), IgA nephropathy (IgAN, 9.64%) and vasculitis (6.82%). When compared with the control group, the results showed that MN (P < 0.0001), DN (P < 0.0001), vasculitis (P < 0.0001) and amyloidosis (P < 0.0001) occurred more frequently and IgAN (P < 0.0001), lupus nephritis (P < 0.0001) and minimal change disease (P < 0.0001) occurred less frequently in the elderly. This study is the first and largest renal biopsy series to analyze patients aged a parts per thousand yen65 years in China, and the results obtained from this study may increase the knowledge of renal diseases in elderly patients.