Evaluation of growth and body mass index in children following kidney transplantation

الملخص EN

Growth retardation is common among children with chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Renal transplantation has beneficial effects on height and weight gain of children, but height gain occurs especially for those children who are transplanted at a younger age.

This study was conducted for a cross-sectional evaluation of growth and body mass index (BMI) in children following kidney transplantation.

All children who had been transplanted in our center and had regular follow-up were entered in this study.

Those with primary non-functioning grafts were excluded from the study.

Weight and height at transplantation and at 20 years of age or at a pre-determined period (1-4-2008 to 30-6-2008) were recorded.

Their height, weight, BMI, standard deviation score (SDS) of height and weight at their pre- and post-transplantation period were compared.

SPSS 15.1 software and paired t-test were used for comparison of means.

Seventy-one children, 43 boys and 28 girls, were involved in this study.

The mean age at transplantation was 12.6 ± 3.45 years, ranging from 3 to 19 years, and age at last visit was 16.9 ± 3.15 years.

They had been followed-up for 7-175 months (mean, 51.6 ± 30.75 months).

Their primary renal diseases were as follows: reflux, obstruction and dysplasia 29 (41%), hereditary 25 (35%), glomerular disease 14 (20%), unknown 3 (4%).

Source of donor was living related in 27 (38%), with 15 being mothers, deceased in 35 (49%) and living unrelated in 9 (13%).

SDS height improved dramatically in post-transplantation evaluation, but this did not happen for SDS weight and BMI.

We can conclude that despite a dramatic effect of transplantation on growth, catch-up growth only occurred in a minority of the children.