Espectro de la enfermedad renal comprobada mediante biopsia en pacientes geriátricos: Presentación clínica, diagnóstico histológico e indicaciones de biopsia, experiencia de un solo centro

Abstract

Introduction: As life expectancy increases, geriatric patients are affected by kidney disease; nephrologists are increasingly faced with a geriatric population requiring kidney biopsy (KB). Objective: To analyze geriatric patients' histopathological diagnosis, clinical presentation, and biopsy indications. Methods: All patients who underwent native KB in our center between 2017 and 2023 were included. Histopathological diagnosis, clinical presentation, and biopsy indications in geriatric patients were compared with the non-geriatric group. Results: Among the 511 included patients, those older than 65 years (n:81, 15.8%) were analyzed and compared with those aged 18–64 years (n:430, 84.2%). The median age of the patients was 68 (IQR 66-72) years, and 56.8% were male. Non-nephrotic proteinuria was the most common biopsy indication in the geriatric group (27.2%, p: 0.004). The most frequent primer glomerular disease (PGD) was membranous glomerulonephritis (MGN). MGN (33.3%) was the leading cause of nephrotic syndrome. The geriatric group's most frequent Primary Glomerular Disease (PGD) histopathological patterns were MGN, FSGS, and pauci-immune GN. The frequency of acute kidney injury was significantly higher in the geriatric group (19.8%) compared to the non-geriatric group (11.6%) (p = 0.046). Secondary glomerular diseases (SGD) were more common than PGD and tubulointerstitial nephritis. Diabetic nephropathy was the most common SGD in both the geriatric and non-geriatric groups (24.7% and 15.6%). Conclusions: The spectrum of biopsy-proven kidney disease in the geriatric patients seen in our study differs from that of the non-geriatric population. KB provides valuable information with diagnostic, therapeutic, and prognostic implications in these patients.