Febrile Urinary Tract Infections Common With Neurogenic Bladder

WEDNESDAY, March 8, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Recurrent febrile urinary tract infections (FUTIs) are common in children with neurogenic bladder, and the risk for rapid progression to chronic kidney disease (CKD) increases in a dose-response manner, according to a study recently published in the European Journal of Pediatric Surgery.

Guanglun Zhou, from Shenzhen Children's Hospital in China, and colleagues evaluated whether renal function, assessed as the estimated glomerular filtration rate, is associated with the number of FUTIs in children diagnosed with neurogenic bladder. The analysis included 463 children (mean age, 23 months).

The researchers found that during a median follow-up of 51 months, 302 children had four or more FUTIs and 161 children had none to three FUTIs. From the first to third episodes of FUTI, the incidence of developing CKD grade 3 to 5 gradually increased (1.3 to 2.4 percent) but drastically increased after four episodes (≥22.5 percent), with the incidence reaching 100 percent after eight FUTIs. Compared with children with one FUTI, the odds of CKD grade 3 to 5 in children with four FUTIs were 17.3 and 43.7 times greater after four and six FUTIs, respectively.

"This study showed that recurrent FUTIs are common in children with neurogenic bladder and that the risk of rapid progression to CKD grade 3 to grade 5 increases substantially after four or more FUTIs," the authors write.

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