Clinicopathological and prognostic study of idiopathic membranous nephropathy with tip or non-tip variant focal segmental glomerulosclerosis: a single-center cohort study.

Journal: Renal Failure
Published:
Abstract

Idiopathic membranous nephropathy (IMN) complicated with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) is not rare, but the impact of variant pathological manifestations of FSGS (tip variant vs non-tip variant) on the clinical and prognosis of IMN patients remains to be further studied. A total of 536 eligible IMN patients were enrolled in the study and divided into three groups based on the variant histopathological presence of FSGS: 387 patients without FSGS (IMN group), 67 patients with tip variant FSGS (tpFSGS group), and 82 patients with non-tip variant FSGS (ntpFSGS group). IMN patients with FSGS had significantly lower serum albumin (IMN vs. tpFSGS vs. ntpFSGS, 21.20 [17.15, 25.25] vs. 18.60 [16.05, 22.10] vs. 17.90 [15.40, 22.03], p < 0.001) and higher 24-hour proteinuria (5.65 [3.60, 7.69] vs. 6.11 [3.97, 8.46] vs. 6.98 [4.77, 8.49], p = 0.003). Additionally, the ntpFSGS group exhibited more advanced histopathological manifestations (pathological stage, p < 0.05). Otherwise, a lower complete remission rate was observed in the ntpFSGS group. Furthermore, multivariate Cox regression analysis demonstrated significantly lower remission in tpFSGS [HR = 0.69, p = 0.029] and ntpFSGS [HR = 0.66, p = 0.014] groups. Adjusted by the immunosuppressive therapy, a worse prognosis was observed in the ntpFSGS group [KM curve, log-rank, p < 0.05], but no significant difference in the IMN group and the tpFSGS group [KM curve, log-rank, p = 0.74]. Our cohort study suggests that idiopathic membranous nephropathy patients with secondary variant FSGS indicated different clinical significance.

Authors
Shungang Xu, Xueting Liu, Xuanwen Chen, Bo Chen, Sishi Lin, Xiaohan You, Duo Li, Ji Zhang, Chaosheng Chen