Distribution of pathological finding in the children with nephrotic syndrome from Guangxi

To identify the variations in pediatric renal biopsy pathology and clinicopathological features in Guangxi, China, in the past ten years, we studied retrospectively the kidney biopsies performed to evaluate the primary nephrotic syndrome (PNS) in 218 children at two main medical centers in Guangxi from January 1999 to January 2009. The major pathological finding was mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis (48.2%), focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (16.5%), immunoglobulin A nephropathy (13.3%) and minimal change disease (11.0%). Patients with different pathological types yielded different response rates to glucocorticoids (P <0.001). There were statistical significant differences between prognosis for the different pathological types (P <0.05). The pathological characteristics of PNS in children were diverse and significant for guiding the grade of glucocorticoid response and predicting the prognosis of the PNS disease.