Excerpt
Baby boomers, aged around 60 years, and their children make two peaks in the demographic chart in Japan. The elderly population aged 65 and older comprised 17 % of the population in 2010 and will be rapidly increasing to 30 % by 2020, mainly because baby boomers will reach the age of 65 years old and the birth rate will be low [
1]. An aging society increases the prevalence of chronic kidney diseases (CKD). The number of patients with CKD was estimated to be about 13 million (13 % of the adult population) in Japan [
2], and the incidence of end-stage kidney disease, which occurs at a mean age of 68 years, was more than 35,000 in the last 5 years [
3]. The elderly population 70 years and older accounted for 58 % of the CKD population [
2]. The prevalence of proteinuria increases in association with aging, and 6.3 and 8.7 % of the adult male population had proteinuria in their 70s and 80s, respectively [
2]. In females, individuals with proteinuria comprised 3.6 and 6.7 %, respectively [
2]. Increasing numbers of elderly patients with kidney disease compel the field of geriatric nephrology to develop. However, limited data are available regarding pathological demographics in elderly patients. The Japanese Society of Nephrology launched the Japan Renal Biopsy Registry (JRBR) in 2007 to elucidate the pathological manifestation of Japanese renal diseases [
4]. The registered biopsy record included more than 15,000 patients in 2012 and provided a great database resource for research [
4]. …
