[Infectious complications in children with end-stage renal disease on replacement therapy]

Annually, 5000 children younger than 20 years of age and 200 younger than two-years require treatment for chronic kidney disease (CKD). The objective was to estimate the incidence rate of infectious complications in children requiring renal replacement therapy.

Retrospective cohort. Patients with a minimum of three months of follow-up in programs of peritoneal dialysis and hemodyalisis were included. The incidence rate for infections associated to replacement therapy was calculated.

67 patients were analysed. In 88 %, initial therapy for CKD was peritoneal dialysis. A total of 52 episodes of peritonitis occured, with an incidence rate of 0.63 episodes/patient-year. Thirty children (48 %) never had an episode of peritonits during the folow-up. At six months, 90 % of the children had the same peritoneal dialysis catheter, decreasing to 84, 74 and 50 % at 12, 18 and 24 months, respectively. Forty-five children were on hemodialysis, 82 % preceded by peritoneal dialysis. Dialysis treatment time in 25 % of them was longer than 19 months. Twenty-two episodes of catheter-related bacteremia occurred, with an incidence rate of 1 episode/1000 catheter-days or 2.5/1000 hemodyalisis sesions. Twenty-nine patients received a transplant (43 %); two of them died. Median waiting time to transplant was 15 months.

Incidence rate of infectious complications was similar to the rates reported in the literature by other centers. At 20 months, half of the patients had at least one infectious complication.