The nephrotic syndrome in the elderly: clinico-pathological correlations in 317 patients

We have used the Medical Research Council's Glomerulonephritis (GN) registry to review the clinicopathological findings in a large group (317) of patients over 60 years of age and presenting with the nephrotic syndrome. A wide variety of histological appearances were seen to underlie this clinical diagnosis with the most frequent being membranous nephropathy (36.6%), minimal change nephrotic syndrome (11.0%) and renal amyloid (10.7%). Clinical parameters measured at the time of biopsy were unhelpful in distinguishing between the individual histological groups. A secondary cause for the nephrotic syndrome was identified in 103 (32%) patients, and a malignancy was known to be present at the time of biopsy in 15 patients.