Clinical Profile, Histopathological Features and Outcome of IgA Nephropathy in a Tertiary Care Hospital in India

IgA nephropathy (IgAN) is reported to be more common in Asians and is considered to be a very progressive disease with worse outcome. The present study encompasses a cohort of biopsy-proven IgAN in a tertiary care hospital to characterize the initial clinical presentation, Oxford classification profile and one year follow up of patients with clinical and biochemical investigations. All renal biopsies with a diagnosis of primary IgAN were included. In all biopsies with ≥8 viable glomeruli, the MEST-C scores were analyzed, according to the Oxford criteria. Demographic and clinical data included age, gender, presence of hypertension, presence of hematuria and edema. Baseline investigations include urine protein semiquantitative, spot urine protein creatinine ratio, 24-h urinary protein, serum creatinine, and serum albumin. All the details of the use of antiproteinuric drugs and immunosuppressive drugs were recorded. Total 48 renal biopsies (21.62%) were diagnosed as primary IgAN. Thirty-seven (77.08%) had renal dysfunction on initial presentation out of which 31 (64.5%) patients had subnephrotic range proteinuria (SNRP). MEST-C lesions distribution were interpreted in 39 patients. 42.85% of patients with nephrotic range proteinuria (NRP) and 55.55% of patients with SNRP had renal deterioration during follow up period while 28.57% patients with NRP and 41.66% patients with SNRP had reached end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Our study population of IgAN has a unique clinical profile with hypertension, microscopic hematuria and subnephrotic proteinuria as the predominant clinical presentation. In spite of low MEST-C score in our study cohort, the disease has an aggressive course with 47.91% of patients with renal function deterioration and about one third follow up patients approaching ESRD during the study period.