Precision nephrology: from molecular diagnostics to an individualized therapy

Abstract

The diagnosis of glomerular disease still mostly relies on the conventional histologic and immunohistochemical analysis of biopsies, thereby failing to provide a molecular disease understanding and stratification as the fundamental basis for an individualized therapy. It is out of the question that nephrology will be transformed into a field of systemic molecular precision diagnostics and individualized therapies. However, the time scale and efficiency of such transformation will depend on more studies exemplifying successful translational strategies. The highly heterogeneous glomerular disease entities of minimal change disease and focal segmental glomerular sclerosis seem ideally suited to exploring and ensuring the advancement of an individualized precision nephrology.