Nephrotic syndrome in Saudi children clinicopathological study of 150 cases

The study includes 150 children with primary nephrotic syndrome (NS), aged 16 months to 13 years with a median age of 5 years. The male to female ratio was 2:1 and the familial occurrence was 6%. Amongst 48 biopsied patients, 19 (39%) had focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, 17 (35%) had diffuse mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis (MesPGN) and 10 (21%) had minimal change nephropathy. About 90% of patients responded to the initial prednisolone therapy. Subsequently 45% of steroid-sensitive patients had frequent relapses, 23% had no relapses, 21% had infrequent relapses and 5% became steroid resistant. Saudi children with primary NS showed no differences as regards age at onset, male predominance and response to initial prednisolone therapy when compared with published data from other countries. However, the higher incidence of familial occurrence, the relatively high frequency of MesPGN, the rarity of infection-related NS and a decreasing incidence of serious infections with improving socio-economic status were all noteworthy.