Urinary tract infection and vesicoureteral reflux in saudi children

This is a retrospective study of 82 children with urinary tract infection (UTI) evaluated for the prevalence of vesicoureteral reflux at a community hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 1997 to 2000. There were 73 (89%) girls and nine (11%) boys; 58 (71%) were at an age between 1-5 years, 15 (18%) were between 0-1year and nine (11%) were more than 5 years of age. All patients were documented to have UTI by history and laboratory investigations. There were 29 patients (35%) who had acute pyelonephritis at the initial clinical presentation and 53 (65%) had recurrent UTI. Escherichia coli was the isolated bacterium from urine in 79(96.4%) patients. Thirty-four (41.5%) patients had vesicoureteral reflux (VUR); 17 (50%) had it bilaterally and 14 (41%) had renal scarring. There were 9/82 (11%) patients who had renal scarring without reflux. Twenty-six (77%) of the VUR patients had mild to moderate reflux (grade 1-3) and eight (23%) had severe reflux (grade 4-5). Two patients with bilateral reflux had mild to moderate reflux on one side and severe reflux on the other. The age of the patients with VUR was below one year in 11 (32%), between 1 year and 5 years in 21(62%), and between 6 and 12 years in two (6%) patients. There were 11/ 29 (38%) patients with acute pyelonephritis who had reflux. Follow-up of the VUR patients showed that reflux disappeared without surgical intervention in 15 (44%), improved in two (6%) to lower grade and worsened in two (6%) to higher grade. Seven (20.5%) patients underwent ureteral reimplantation; all of them had recurrent UTI and were more than one year of age. While on chemoprophylaxis, two (28%) of the reimplanted patients developed breakthrough infections and the remaining five (72%) had a radiological picture of chronic pyelonephritis. None of the study patients developed new scars, hypertension or renal failure during follow-up; the duration of follow-up was from 5 months to 3 1/2 years and only seven (20.5%) patients had less than one-year follow-up. We conclude that Saudi children with UTI below 7 years of age have high incidence of reflux and scarring especially in patients presenting with acute pyelonephritis. A multi center study is needed to evaluate the size of the problem and its complications in the Saudi children besides screening of the siblings of patients with reflux.