Kidney Disease in Bahrain: A Biopsy-Based Epidemiological Study

The aim of this study was to establish the incidence of renal diseases in Bahrain during January 2003 through October 2006, based on biopsy results. This study continued a previous biopsy-based survey covering 13 years from January 1990 through December 2002. Comparisons were made with the previous study to ascertain whether the disease pattern continued in the same trend. The current study included 145 biopsies on 130 patients, of whom glomerular diseases constituted 64.8%; transplant biopsies, 23.4%; chronic glomerulosclerosis, 8.9%; and other etiologies, 4.1%. There were comparable numbers of primary and secondary glomerular diseases in the present series. The incidence of renal biopsies per 100,000 population per year did not significantly change over the last 15 years: 5.4/100,000 per year in the present series versus 5.8/100,000 per year in the previous study. The pattern of primary glomerular diseases showed the minimal change disease-focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (MCD-FSGS) complex-remained the most common of all primary glomerular diseases, although decreased in absolute numbers compared with the previous study. A significant increase in the number of patients with immunoglobulin A nephropathy was observed over the years. Secondary glomerular diseases showed an increased incidence with lupus nephritis the number one diagnosis. Also we observed a steady increase in the number of allograft biopsies.