Estimation of age from sclerotic glomeruli

Abstract

Glomerular sclerosis is one of the age-related causes of nephron damage. Histological studies of cadaver kidneys in several ethnic groups have shown that there is a consistent relationship between the percentage of sclerotic glomeruli (PSG) and age. However, no study regarding this relationship in the Japanese population has been reported to date. Here, we investigated such relationship in 150 Japanese cadavers that were selected regardless of clinical history. The straight line regression was estimated as follows: Age=23.3+1.36 x APSG (APSG: arcsine-transformed PSG). The R(2) value of the regression line was 0.598. The diagnostic test with the PSG value (cutoff=0.6%) for the age stratum (cutoff=33 years old) showed very high sensitivity (100%) and specificity (97.6%). From the results, PSG appears to be useful for the estimation of a cadaver's age in the Japanese population.