The modern spectrum of biopsy-proven renal disease in Chinese diabetic patients—a retrospective descriptive study

BACKGROUND: Renal biopsies performed in diabetic patients are increasing and becoming more complex. Comprehensive data on modern spectrum of biopsy-proven renal disease in Chinese diabetic patients are lacking. METHODS: In a nationwide renal biopsy survey including 71,151 native biopsies from 2004 to 2014, diabetic patients were identified according to the clinical diagnosis from referral records. The clinical data were extracted from referral records and pathological reports. RESULTS: A total of 1,604 diabetic patients, including 61 patients with T1DM, were analyzed in this study. The median age is 51.39 ± 11.37 years. Male patients accounted for 58% of the population. We found that only 44.7% of diabetic patients had the isolated pathological diagnosis of diabetic nephropathy (DN), while 49.1% had non-diabetic renal disease (NDRD) alone, and 6.2% had NDRD superimposed on DN. Nephrotic syndrome (n = 824, 51.4%) was the most common clinical indication for renal biopsy. Among 887 patients with NDRD, membranous nephropathy (n = 357) was the leading diagnosis, followed by IgA nephropathy (n = 179). Hypertensive renal disease (n = 32), tubulointerstitial nephropathy (n = 27) and acute tubular necrosis (n = 16) accounted for 3.5%, 2.9%, 1.7% of the NDRD cases respectively. Nearly a half (49.2%) of patients with T1DM had NDRD. DISCUSSION: Over 55% diabetic patients with kidney disease were diagnosed as non-diabetic renal disease, among which MN and IgAN were the most common two pathological types.