Histological and immunohistological classification of canine glomerular disease.

A histological and immunohistological study of the kidneys of 115 dogs, with and without clinical signs of spontaneous renal disease, was performed to prove the applicability of the WHO criteria for the classification of human glomerulopathy. Aside from the morphological investigation of paraffin and resin semithin sections, deposits of immunoglobulins, the complement component C3, and fibrinogen were observed immunoenzymatically in paraffin-embedded tissue specimens. From this, eight different types of glomerular lesions with various frequencies were identified: minor glomerular abnormalities (28 cases), focal and segmental hyalinosis and sclerosis (12 cases), focal glomerulonephritis (GN; 18 cases), diffuse membranous GN (nine cases), diffuse mesangial proliferative GN (2 cases), diffuse endocapillary proliferative GN (five cases), diffuse mesangiocapillary GN (25 cases), diffuse sclerosing GN (11 cases) und unclassified GN (two cases). In one case, renal dysplasia was diagnosed and two dogs did not present glomerular alterations. The results are discussed with regard to human glomerular diseases and pathogenic mechanisms.