Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis: a diagnostic problem

Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) is an important clinical problem as it leads to end-stage renal disease. Clinicians have long been able to treat patients with FSGS. Therefore, the demands the clinicians make on pathomorphologists, which include the diagnosis of FSGS at a possibly early stage, are justifiable. However, early diagnosis of FSGS is difficult. The analysis involved 150 cases of FSGS diagnosed between 2003 and 2008. These constitute 14.53% of renal biopsy material of that period. The test material comes from 138 adults and 12 children. The adult group mostly included patients with albuminuria (58 patients) and nephrotic syndrome (36 patients). Smaller groups included patients with albuminuria and hypertension, erythrocyturia and albuminuria, isolated erythrocyturia. The children group mostly included patients with the nephrotic syndrome. Individual patients suffered from isolated albuminuria and erythrocyturia. In both groups, FSGS NOS lesions prevailed. However, FSGS hilar and FSGS tip lesions, as well as completely sclerotized glomeruli were also present. Diverse symptoms of diseases may pose specific difficulties in clinical diagnosis. Similarly, determination of FSGS lesion type may be difficult due to simultaneous presence of different subtypes in the same punctate.