FEATURES OF OUR PATIENTS WITH PRIMARY GLOMERULONEPHRITIS

The distribution of the types of primary glomerulonephritis (GN) varies from one center to another depending on ethnicity, geographical region and the indication for biopsy. It was observed that the most frequent diagnoses reached at 'our center in the last decade when the biopsy results of 283 patients (159 males, 124 females, mean age: 32.9±W, range: 15-70) diagnosed as primary GN were: membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis (MPGN) (26.6%), membranous glomerulonephritis (MGN) (23.4%) and diffuse proliferative glomerulonephritis (DPGN) (20.9%). Of the biopsied cases, 39.2% had pure nephrotic syndrome, 30.4% nephrotic+nephritic syndrome, and 25.1% nephritic syndrome. Also, 5.3% of the cases were biopsied because of asymptomatic urinary abnormalities. The most frequent diagnoses in nephrotic syndrome, nephritic syndrome, nephrotic+nephritic syndrome, and in patients.with asymptomatic urinary abnormalities were, respectively, MPGN (29.4%), DPGN (29.6%), MPGN (32.6%), and DPGN (33.3%). It is known that MPGN - the pathogenesis of which is associated with an immune-complex mechanism- has been declining in developed countries; and this condition can be explained with the decrease in infections. Although we excluded known secondary causes in our study, finding a high prevalence of MPGN might make us think that undefined infective agents still play important roles in the pathogenesis ofGN in our country.