Use of rhGH in children with chronic kidney disease: lessons from NAPRTCS.

We evaluated the utilization and potential benefits of recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) in children with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and following renal transplantation in a large patient cohort. We queried the chronic renal insufficiency (CRI), dialysis, and transplant registries of the North American Pediatric Renal Trials and Collaborative Studies (NAPRTCS) to characterize the frequency of rhGH utilization, factors related to its usage, and the relationship between rhGH usage and catch-up growth. Data from 6,505, 5,122, and 4,478 CRI, dialysis, and transplant patients, respectively, was evaluated.

Stature in children with chronic kidney disease: analysis of NAPRTCS database.

Despite recent advances in the management of children with chronic kidney disease (CKD), growth remains suboptimal. The purpose of this study was to evaluate factors associated with short stature in children with CKD. We evaluated the chronic renal failure registry of the North American Pediatric Renal Transplant Cooperative Studies (NAPRTCS) to determine the relations among primary diagnosis, age, race, residual renal function, acidosis, anemia, serum phosphorous, calcium, parathyroid hormone (PTH), albumin, and height at entry into the registry in children with CKD.

Impact of alendronate on quality of life in children with osteogenesis imperfecta.

Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is a debilitating clinical condition characterized by fragile bone and skeletal deformity. Over the past decade frequent reports have suggested that the cyclical administration of intravenous pamidronate has a positive impact on bone density and skeletal fractures; however, the impact of such therapy on the quality of life (QOL) has rarely been reported. Alendronate, an oral bisphosphonate, is widely used to treat osteoporosis.

Patterns and time of initiation of dialysis in US children.

The purpose of this communication is to study the clinical patterns and level of residual renal function at the initiation of dialysis in children in the United States of America (US). Data were reviewed for 7,039 children under the age of 20 years and 647,600 adults extracted from the patient incidence report, obtained from the United States Renal Data Systems (USRDS), who were initiated on dialysis between January 1995 and September 2002. Based on pre-defined exclusion criteria, only 4,808 of the 7,093 (67.