BENGALURU: With the number of kidney-related ailments among children on the rise in the state, doctors demand focus on paediatric nephrology cases. Experts claim that early detection is the key and as long as the state doesn’t spread awareness on this, the situation may get worse.For instance, Bengaluru’s tertiary care Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health (IGICH) gets around 2,000 paediatric kidney-related outpatient cases in a year, of which at least 500 require admission. Around 45 come to hospital at stage 5, when their kidneys are completely damaged.
“We definitely need to focus on kidney ailments in children. While disease burden in adults has gone up, the same has happened in paediatric cases too. If the ailment is identified early, children can be saved from going through trauma and endless wait for donors to transplant kidneys,” said Dr Rajeshwari M, MBBS, MD (Paediatric), DM (Paediatric Nephrology), and Assistant Professor in Paediatric Nephrology at IGICH.
Interestingly, she is the only highly-qualified paediatric nephrologist in the state. Doctors indicate the need to ensure that more doctors specialise in this stream. They say the state requires more medical institutions and specialised centres to address the problem. A senior health official admitted there is an increase in the number of children with kidney ailments, especially in rural areas and from the lower strata, but the state is yet to prepare statistics on this.
Dr Rajeshwari explains that in a majority of children, a lack of awareness results in delay in identification of symptoms like stunted growth, anaemia, bony deformities etc, and they reach doctors only in the later stages.
Dr Mohan Keshavmurthy, Director, Department of Urology, Fortis Hospital said, “Relevant investigation is essential to diagnose kidney diseases in the paediatric age group. Swelling of face, inadequate growth, family history of kidney disease or renal failure should raise the red flag. In a month, we see 20 patients with kidney disease and three or four patients with renal failure,” he said. Doctors say that repeated urine infections in boys and girls need to be evaluated. “There is a fear among people to visit nephrologists. This has to go,” Dr Rajeshwari adds.
WAITING FOR DONORS
Stage 5 cases need long-term dialysis and kidney transplant, and often, the donor is the mother or her parents, or father or his parents. But in cases where the parents’ blood group doesn’t match or they are unfit to be donors, Jeevasarthakathe, , a body appointed by the State government to oversee implementation of the Transplantation of Human Organs Act of 1994, puts them on the waiting list.