Outcome of post-infectious renal scarring

In this issue of Pediatric Nephrology, Gebäck et al. from Gothenburg, Sweden, show that after a mean follow-up after childhood urinary tract infection of 41 years, kidney function decreases from a mean of 93 ml/min/1.73m² to 81 ml/min/1.73m². This was found in women with severe bilateral renal scarring. They had experienced their UTI during childhood in the 1950s and 1960s and had been drawn from a population-based cohort of more than 1,000 children. A previous paper on this same group of women had shown a higher systolic blood pressure of 3 mmHg during the day and 5 mmHg during the night compared with a control group. This contrasted with a follow-up study published earlier by the same group on two different cohorts in which no impairment of kidney function or increase in hypertension could be found. The present follow-up time was 13 years longer than that of any previous studies. Data on the long-term outcome of children who have had one or several urine infections is very important, as the fear of long-term complications has been driving the extensive investigations to which these children have traditionally been subjected. Further population-based follow-up data can help us to outline modern guidance on imaging after UTI.