PracticeWhy read this summary? Although urinary tract infection affects at least 3.6% of boys and 11% of girls, establishing the diagnosis is difficult in early childhood owing to the lack of specific urinary symptoms, difficulty in urine collection, and contamination of samples. Most children have a single episode and recover promptly. Current imaging, prophylaxis, and prolonged follow-up strategies place a heavy burden on patients, families, and NHS resources and carry risks without evidence of benefit. This article summarises the most recent guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) on how to provide consistent clinically and cost effective practice for the diagnosis, treatment, and further management of urinary tract infection in childhood.

In June 2000 the ERA-EDTA Registry office moved to Amsterdam and started collecting core data on renal replacement therapy (RRT) entirely through national and regional registries. This paper reports the pediatric data from 12 registries. The analysis comprised 3,184 patients aged less than 20 years and starting RRT between 1980 and the end of 2000. The incidence of RRT rose from 7.1 per million of age-related population (pmarp) in the 1980-1984 cohort to 9.9 pmarp in the 1985-1989 cohort, and remained stable thereafter. The prevalence increased from 22.9 pmarp in 1980 to 62.1 in 2000. Hemodialysis was the commonest form of treatment at the start of dialysis, but peritoneal dialysis gained popularity during the late 1980s. Pre-emptive transplantation accounted for 18% of the first treatment modality in the 1995-2000 cohort. The relative risk of death of patients starting dialysis in the period 1995-2000 was reduced by 36% [adjusted hazard ratio (AHR) 0.64 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.41-1.00] and that of those receiving a first allograft by 42% [AHR 0.58 (95% CI 0.34-1.00)], compared with patients in the period 1980-1984. The prevalence of RRT in children has continued to rise, while its incidence has been stable for about 15 years. Patient survival has improved in both dialysis patients and transplant recipients. The development of this pediatric registry will form the basis for more-detailed and focused studies in the future.

Urine dipstick testing is more effective for diagnosis of UTI in children over 2 years than for younger children.

The incidence and prevalence of ERF in children in the UK are relatively static at 8.0 and 47.7 per million population under the age of 15 years, respectively. The prevalence of ERF in children from the South Asian community is almost three times that of the White population whilst the incidence is over three times that of the White population and similar to the increase seen in the adult population. The high incidence and prevalence are related to the high incidence of inherited diseases which cause ERF in the South Asian community. ERF in children is more common in males than females (male to female ratio 1.54:1). This is due to a preponderance of males with renal dysplasia and obstructive uropathy causing ERF. For the South Asian patients, the gender ratio is 1:1 as the inherited diseases are mainly autosomal recessive. Renal dysplasia is the single most common cause of ERF in childhood, followed closely by glomerular disorders and then obstructive uropathy. The majority of prevalent paediatric ERF patients (76%) have a renal allograft. Of these, 28% are from living donations. The proportion of patients from ethnic minority groups with a functioning allograft is significantly smaller than that in the White population (P < 0.0001). Despite this, the rate of living related donation is no higher in the ethnic minority population. In prevalent patients PD is twice as commonly used as HD with the majority managed with automated PD. For patients at one year from starting RRT, 49% are on PD, 10% on HD and 41% have a transplant.

An analysis of all pediatric cadaveric renal transplant recipients in the UK and Eire was undertaken to review the outcomes of pediatric cadaveric renal transplantation and to consider the implications for organ allocation procedures for pediatric recipients. Factors influencing the outcome of 1,252 pediatric cadaveric renal transplants in the UK and Eire in the 10-yr period from 1 January 1986 to 31 December 1995 were analyzed by Cox proportional hazards regression, including analysis of four distinct post-transplant epochs (0-3 months, 3-12 months, 12-36 months, and beyond 36 months). At the time of analysis (December 2000), 113 (11%) recipients had died and 47% of grafts had failed. In the multi-factorial modelling, the factors significantly affecting transplant outcome were cold ischaemia time, donor and recipient age and human leucocyte antigen (HLA) matching. Epoch analysis demonstrated that these factors operated at different times post-transplant. Cold ischaemia time had a strong influence on outcome at 3 months. A highly significant increased risk of graft failure was associated with donors under 5 yr of age. Young recipients had an increased risk of failure in the short term, but beyond 1 yr post-transplant there were few failures in young recipients while a steady rate of graft loss persisted in the older children. In terms of HLA matching, the worst outcome was observed for two HLA-DR mismatched grafts, while 000 and favorably matched kidneys (100, 010, 110 HLA-A, -B, -DR mismatches) survived longest. Hence, a policy of exchanging organs on the basis of HLA matching is justified for 000 mismatched and favorably matched kidneys. The poor outcome associated with very young donors should discourage pediatric units from transplanting kidneys from such young donors. The reasons for late losses in older recipients need investigation.