The Epidemiology, Clinical Features, and Outcome of Infection-related Glomerulonephritis from East India: A Single Center Experience

Infection-related glomerulonephritis (IRGN) is an example of immunological renal injury due to non-renal infections. With the changing face of IRGN over the years, renal biopsy definitely has an important role to play in differentiating this disease from the other masquerades and helps in prognosticating the long-term outcomes. This prospective study includes biopsy-proven IRGN cases who presented to us from July 2010 to July 2013 from a single center in East India. Of the 168 patients suspected and screened, 137 patients were proved to have IRGN. About 11.67% cases were proven to be immunoglobulin A-IRGN variant. The mean age of presentation was 22.7 ± 15.8 years with a slight male preponderance. A nephrotic range of proteinuria was seen in 13.8% cases and 17.5% patient required renal replacement therapy at presentation. Around 8.75% patients had persistent proteinuria despite normal renal function beyond 6 months of follow-up and 8.09% patients progressed to chronic kidney disease. It may no longer be classified as a glomerular disease with the definite favorable outcome as an important number of patients may progress to chronicity following this disease. Renal biopsy plays an important role in the assessment of prognosis of IRGN and detection of the presence of other underlying glomerulonephritis and should be considered early, especially in patients with atypical presentation.