Transcripts
DR. BRANDT:
So what's going to happen 20 or 30 or 50 years later is the big question, for a nephrologist.
Those kids with normal renal function and no hyperfiltration are probably going to do fine. They're not going to have progressive renal damage. They're not going to progress to chronic renal failure where there's a lot of scarring and decreased function.
Kids with a lot of severe injury after HUS probably are going to progress to chronic renal failure. Often, their creatinines don't get back to normal, they have persistent proteinuria, and low GFR six months or a year after HUS has resolved. Usually you already suspect these kids are going to have progressive renal damage in maybe 10, 20, 30 years.
But these kids in the middle, the ones with moderate hyperfiltration, are the ones we may not suspect of having problems; they are the ones at risk of developing unsuspected progressive renal injury. We still don't know how to identify children except by close yearly follow-up.
