Children with chronic renal failure in the Federal Republic of Germany: II. Primary renal diseases, age and intervals from early renal failure to renal death. Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Pädiatrische Nephrologie.

In a retrospective survey, 623 children with chronic renal failure (CRF) comprising a 7-year period were registered in the Federal Republic of Germany. The primary renal disease could be classified in 91% of the patients. Pyelonephritis was the most frequent diagnosis (31%), followed by glomerulopathies (20%), renal hypoplasia or dysplasia (14%), cystic kidney disease including nephronophthisis (12%), other hereditary nephropathies (7%), and vascular nephropathies (4%). At the time of first presentation, 23% of the children with preterminal chronic renal failure were younger than 5 years, 34% 5 to 10 years and 43% 10 to 16 years old. At the time of renal death, the serum creatinine level was below 10 mg/dl in 84% of the children below 5 years, compared to 5% in the patients older than 10 years. The mean interval from the first presentation of CRF to the terminal stage was 6 months in vascular nephropathies, 19 months in cystic renal disease, 26 months in glomerular disorders, 32 months in pyelonephritis, and 36 months in hereditary nephropathies and in renal hypoplasia or dysplasia. The range of these intervals is so large, even when diagnostic subgroups are considered, that a reliable prediction of the individual course from the underlying kidney disease is not possible.