Acute glomerulonephritis in middle-aged and elderly patients.

Acute glomerulonephritis is an uncommon disease in the middle-aged and elderly. Of the 173 cases investigated by Ellis (1942) only three were over 50 and none was over 60; and Fishberg (1954) reported only once seeing a patient older than 60. While acute glomerulonephritis may pursue a malignant course-with death from oliguric renal failure in the acute phase, at any age-older patients seem particularly prone to this severe variant of the disease. Further, in this age group the presenting features often differ from those commonly seen in younger patients (Samiy, Field, and Merrill, 1961). It is for these reasons that we report the clinical and pathological features of the seven patients aged over 50 seen at the renal unit of King's College Hospital in a three-year period from 1962 to 1965. They were all referred from other hospitals because of renal failure severe enough to warrant consideration of haemodialysis. During this time no younger patient with this disease required haemodialysis at this unit.