Correlation of Clinical and Pathological Findings in Patients with Lupus Nephritis: A Five-Year Experience in Iran

Lupus nephritis (LN) is the most common and serious manifestation of systemic lupus erythematousus (SLE). The World Health Organization (WHO) and International Society of Nephrology/Renal Pathology Society (ISN/RPS 2003) classifications tend to correlate with the clinical syndrome and provide valuable information regarding prognosis and guideline for treatment. We retrospectively studied patients with biopsy proven lupus nephritis at our center from 1999 - 2003 to find whether clinical and laboratory parameters used to evaluate how close the diagnosis correlated with WHO and/ or ISN/RPS 2003 classification. There were 144 patients of whom 84.7 % were females with a mean age of 25.6 ± 10.3 years at the time of renal biopsy. The most frequent SLE presenting features were arthralgia, edema and hypertension. WHO class IV and ISN/RPS class IV were compatible with these most frequent SLE presenting features in 56% and 54.9% of the cases, respectively. Edema, hypertension, increased BUN and Creatinine, increased 24 hours urine protein excretion and decreased serum albumin level were related with a worse class of lupus nephritis. We conclude that there is a correlation between some clinical and laboratory findings, and histopathological lupus classification on renal biopsy ,which remains indispensable in the management of lupus nephritis.