Morphological patterns of glomerular disease in renal biopsies from 1000 Malaysian patients

Adequately biopsied renal tissue received in the Department of Pathology, University Hospital, Kuala Lumpur from 1,000 consecutive Malaysian patients during an eleven year period between 1970 and 1981 was reviewed. The youngest patient was 6 days old and the oldest 80 years. Both sexes were equally represented. The majority of the patients were Chinese (71%) with Malays and Indians comprising most of the remainder. Over half the patients (50.4%) presented with the nephrotic syndrome. Other modes of presentation included systemic lupus erythematosus, proteinuria and haematuria separately or in combination and hypertension. Minimal change (25.7%) and proliferative glomerulonephritis (24.8%) were present in about equal numbers and together accounted for over half of the cases (50.5%). Lupus nephritis was the third most common diagnosis (18.4%). In addition, there were patients with focal glomerulonephritis (5.4%), membranous glomerulonephritis (5.5%), Berger's disease (5.8%), amyloidosis (0.6%) and end stage renal disease (4.0%).