The role of glomerular morphometric features in pediatric podocytopathies - a single center study

Vol. 59 No. 4, 2018

ROMANIAN JOURNAL of MORPHOLOGY and EMBRYOLOGY

Diana Derewicz, Valentin Tiberiu Moldovan, Leila Ali, Roxana Taras, Cosmin Florescu, Mihaela Balgradean, Maria Sajin

Podocytopathies represent a well-studied subgroup of glomerulopathies, being characterized by proteinuria due to damage or dysfunction of podocytes. Glomerular size in podocytopathies has been studied in different population, but only a few studies take in consideration the pediatric population. There are different methods to assess the glomerular size, but most of the studies report the maximal profile area as being the most accurate one. The aim of this study is to determine the range values of glomeruli in pediatric population with glomerulopathies and to establish a correlation between the measured size and several laboratory features. The patients that undergo renal biopsy in the Department of Nephrology, Maria Sklodowska Curie Clinical Emergency Hospital for Children, Bucharest, Romania, were divided into two groups: control vs. affected/patient group. The control group included children that require renal biopsy for renal impairments other than high-range proteinuria (most of them recurrent microscopic asymptomatic hematuria), while the affected group had nephrotic-range proteinuria. Thirty patients were selected to be part of the control group and 30 patients in the affected group. In control group, the mean value diameter was 166.23+/-13.04 micro-m, and the area of the glomerulus had a mean value of 19 126.86+/-3070.83 micro-m2. In the affected group, we obtained the following results: the mean value diameter was 192.42+/-28.15 micro-m, while the glomerular cross-sectional area had a mean value of 23 535.55+/-6456.57 micro-m2. Using the linear regression, we concluded that all the cases with increased-size glomeruli had more urinary protein loss compared with the ones that had small-size glomeruli and low-range proteinuria.

Corresponding author: Diana Derewicz, MD, PhD Student; e-mail: diana_costache195@yahoo.com

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