Urinary tract infections in paediatric patients

Abstract

Introduction Urinary tract infection (UTI) is very common in children and is an important clinical problem. Paediatric patients with UTI may develop vesicoureteric reflux (VUR) which may lead to the development of renal scarring. Objective It is still debatable whether renal scarring can either be associated with vesicoureteric reflux directly or else can occur alone in the absence of any reflux. The main objective of this study is to evaluate whether renal scarring occurs in the presence or absence of VUR. Research Design The research study was designed to collect the MCUG and 99M- DMSA scan results in order to determine whether any renal scarring may be caused by the VUR or mainly by the presence of repeated UTI episodes. This was done by a retrospective study carried out at Mater Dei Hospital Malta, on 30 patients who satisfied all the criteria stated within the study. The results were assessed by means of statistical analysis. Results and Conclusion The results obtained indicated that there is significant association between the severity of VUR and severity of renal scarring. Although, VUR is a risk factor for development of renal scarring, scarring can still develop without VUR. This study also showed significant correlation between the repeated episodes of UTI and severity of renal scars. Therefore, it may be concluded that both recurrent UTI and VUR had good correlation with renal scarring on the DMSA scan.