Chennai: Kidney disease is ranked third amongst life threatening disease in India after cancer and heart disease.
In India alone about 229 children per million go into terminal kidney failure every year and 90 per cent patients cannot afford the cost.
This was disclosed at ‘Nephkids’ programme organised by Dr Mehta’s Hospital and Centre of Excellence for Pediatric Nephrology, under the leadership of its director Dr B R Nammalwar, Head of Department Dr Prabha and senior consultant Dr Sudha Ekambaram
here recently.
According to a press release, as many as 230 general pediatricians attended the programme. The kidneys perform the essential function of removing waste products from the blood and regulating the water fluid levels to keep us healthy.
When the kidneys are not working well, waste builds to high levels in the blood, causing symptoms such as excessive tiredness, fatigue, poor appetite, vomiting, poor nutritional health, growth failure and either passing no urine at all or passing excessive amounts of urine, more at night.
Chronic kidney disease in children is caused by congenital abnormalities. In regions where antenatal foetal ultrasounds are routine, many children with urologic abnormalities are identified before birth, permitting an early intervention.
This is yet not in practice in many places, it said.
Some of the causes of kidney diseases are recurrent poorly treated urinary tract infections, conditions that damage the filtering units of the kidneys called as glomerular diseases.
Currently overweight and obesity which is endemic and increasing rapidly, greatly increases the risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol and chronic kidney disease.
PREVENTION
It is necessary to do a simple urine examination and blood pressure measurement for all children before entering school, during adolescent period and an annual check-up after the age of 30 years.
IN NUMBERS
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) has doubled in the last 15 years. Over 1 million people including children worldwide are alive on dialysis or with a functioning graft and will require renal transplant.