The Nephrotic Syndrome in Ghana: Clinical and Pathological Aspects

Clinical and pathological features of the nephrotic syndromewere studied in 36 adults and 25 children in Ghana. No evidencewas found to implicate Plasmodium malariae as a cause and inthe majority of patients the aetiology was not identified. Minimal change glomerulonephritis responsive to steroids wasdemonstrated in 14/25 children and 5/36 adults which was surprisingas this lesion has been reported only rarely from tropical Africa.The other major histological lesions were focal segmental glomerulosclerosis(12/61), diffuse proliferative glomerulonephritis (11/61) andmembranous glomerulonephritis (9/61).