Kidney Transplant

Pediatric Kidney Transplant

Signs and Symptoms
Evaluation
Treatment

Signs and Symptoms

Most people are born with two kidneys, located at either side of the spine, behind the abdominal organs and below the rib cage. The kidneys perform several major functions to keep your child healthy:

• Filtering blood to remove waste products from normal body functions, passing the waste from the body as urine, and returning water and chemicals back to the body as necessary.
• Regulating blood pressure by releasing several hormones.
• Stimulating red blood cell production by releasing the hormone erythropoietin.

The normal anatomy of the kidneys involves two bean shaped organs that produce urine. Urine is then carried to the bladder by way of the ureters. The bladder serves as a storehouse for the urine. When the body senses that the bladder is full, the urine is excreted from the bladder through the urethra.

When the kidneys stop working, renal failure occurs. If this renal failure continues, end stage renal disease results from the accumulation of toxic waste products in the body. In this case, either dialysis - a mechanical process for filtering waste out of blood -- or transplantation is required to sustain life.

Children's kidney diseases that can progress to moderate or severe renal failure include:

• Congenital Kidney Disease:
  

  • Anatomic deformities of the posterior urethral valves or bladder
  • Reflux Nephropathy, a failure of the bladder's valve mechanism resulting in urine backing up into the kidney
  • Renal dysplasia, abnormal growths in the kidneys

• Genetic, or Inherited, Disease:
  

  • Polycystic kidney disease, numerous cysts in both kidneys destroy normal kidney tissue
  • Alport's syndrome
  • Congenital Nephrotic Syndrome, results from damage to the glomeruli, which are the kidneys' filtering structures

• Acquired Glomerulonephritis -- inflammation of the gomeruli, the kidneys' filtering units:
  

  • Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis - scarring of the glomeruli
  • Vasculitis (Wegener's granulomatosus, polyarteritis nodosa, SLE)
  • IgA Nephropathy
  • Chronic glomerulonephritis
  • Membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis
  • Henoch Schonlein Purpura

Reviewed by health care specialists at UCSF Children's Hospital.
Last updated May 8, 2007