Primary IgA nephropathy in children: association of clinical and pathological findings with prognosis.

Primary IgA nephropathy is a disease characterized by recurrent macroscopic or microscopic hematuria and diffuse mesangial IgA deposition. Although IgA nephropathy had previously been suggested to have a benign prognosis, long term follow-up of the patients revealed that it might lead to chronic renal failure. In this study, the association of the initial clinical and laboratory findings with the renal histological changes was evaluated in 14 cases with primary IgA nephropathy who were at follow-up with a mean duration of 43.07 +/- 16.88 months. Finally the correlation between the clinicopathological findings and prognosis was investigated. In 92.8% of the patients, macroscopic hematuria was the presenting complaint. Proteinuria was detected in 42.9% of the cases mild proteinuria in 14.3% and moderate in 28.6%. Renal biopsy specimens, evaluated according to Churg-Sobin's classification, showed grade 1 changes in 35.7% cases, grade 2 in 35.7%, grade 3 in 14.3% and grade 4 in 14.3%. Both the patients with grade 4 histology had moderate proteinuria, and developed chronic renal failure requiring hemodialysis. Prognosis was found to be associated with the degree of proteinuria and the severity of the histopathological findings.