Abstract
IgA nephropathy (IgAN) typically is a slowly progressing disease, with 10% to 60% of patients developing chronic kidney failure within 10 years. Practice guidelines (e.g., Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes [KDIGO]) are available, but it is unknown how uniformly nephrologists in different countries agree with and may follow these guidelines.
The Delphi Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis and IgA Nephropathy Experts: Physicians (DEFINE: Physicians) study sought to capture nephrologist opinions on IgAN pathophysiology, diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring. In this 2-round Delphi survey, agreement with 20 statements about IgAN was scored by adult and pediatric nephrologists from 7 countries using a 1 to 9 Likert scale (9 = strongly agree).
Moderate versus high consensus was defined as 75% to 89% versus >=90% of participants scoring 7 to 9, respectively. Methods and participant characteristics are detailed in the Supplementary Materials.