Sclerosis describes the damage or scarring of the glomerulus. Focal and segmental refer to the pattern of damage in the kidney. In the U.S. alone, over 280,000 people have ESRD, with 73,000 new patients diagnosed each year. Even with treatment, renal failure frequently progresses. Most people affected by FSGS do NOT have a family history of kidney disease.
Genes are individual instructions that determine traits like eye and hair color.
We hope that finding the genetic causes of FSGS will eventually lead to prevention and better treatment. These markers have different forms called alleles. An individual has two alleles for each marker, having inherited one allele from each parent. Linkage analysis is used to find those markers in which the same alleles are shared by all the FSGS affected individuals in a family. Our linkage analysis has indicated that one form of FSGS is located on chromosome 11.