Age- and gender-related long-term renal outcome in patients with lupus nephritis

Abstract

To investigate age- and gender-related long-term renal outcome in patients with lupus nephritis (LN). This is a retrospective, chart review study of patients with LN at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung, between January 1986 and June 2004. All had undergone a renal biopsy that showed LN. The end point of outcome was chronic renal insufficiency (CRI), which was defined as 'doubling of baseline serum creatinine lasting for at least 6 months with a value at least 2 mg/dl.' The patients were categorized by age tertiles and gender. A 5-year survival curve was constructed to study the effect of age and gender on the outcome. In total, 121 sets of patient data were evaluated. The study group included 104 women and 17 men. Of the study patients, 26 (21%) developed CRI after 5 years of follow-up. There was no significant difference among age groups in developing CRI (p = 0.23). In terms of gender, men had worse long-term renal outcome (p = 0.004) than women. The long-term renal outcome of the LN patients did not differ among age groups, but was worse in men.