Pediatric Kidney Disease

Five years after the Kidney Allocation System was implemented, racial and ethnic disparities decreased in pediatric transplantations but the wait time for kidney transplants increased for pediatric patients of all races and ethnicities.

Boston Children’s Hospital has again been named the top provider of pediatric nephrology care in the country, according to the most recent edition of “Best Children’s Hospitals,” released annually by U.S. News & World Report.

Finding that protein-energy wasting was prevalent in children with kidney disease, researchers outlined what they deemed to be the “most useful” methods for making accurate diagnoses of the condition in this patient population.

Emphasizing that race is not a biological construct, but rather a social construct, a speaker contended that the “multifaceted nature” of disparities impacting outcomes for children with kidney disease must be explored.

A study of children hospitalized in the United States determined those with chronic kidney disease accrued higher costs and had higher rates of mortality than children with other chronic conditions.

While the percentage of children and young people who have severe kidney disease and require renal replacement therapy (RRT) is relatively low (approximately 2%),  the burden of dialysis can have a major impact on a childhood.

A recently published study found primary care physicians prescribed nephrotoxic medications to children with chronic kidney disease at a rate four-times greater than they did to those without the disease.