Background Chronic kidney disease is associated with the development of arterial hypertension in a vast majority of patients. The treatment of hypertension in these subjects is difficult and challenging due to a limited clinical experience with most drugs and no widely recognised recommendations for patients with end-stage renal disease. A choice of antihypertensive drugs is further narrowed by the young age of the patients since almost all drugs are not recommended in children with renal failure. The aim of this nationwide retrospective analysis was to assess the hypertension treatment patterns in the population of children with chronic kidney diseases (CKD) undergoing hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis in Poland.
Material and methods Among all 134 children dialysed on 30th November 2004 in 13 pediatric dialysis centres in Poland seventy four (55%; 47M, 27F) children were hypertensive. For each patients the treating physicians filled a questionnaire that allowed to collect the following data: the primary kidney disease, chronic dialysis treatment, diagnostic criteria of hypertension and present antihypertensive medication if any. Additionally we asked of the doctors’ preference for a therapy for the acute rise in blood pressure and suggestions which drugs, in their opinion, should not be used in dialysed children.
Results In the hypertensive dialysed patients the most frequent causes of chronic kidney disease were chronic glomerulopathies (27/74). Thirty two percent of children were on monotherapy whereas 65% required combined treatment. The therapy was adequate only in 58% of subjects. The lowest rate of efficacy was detected in patients requiring a combined antihypertensive therapy. Among antihypertensive drug classes calcium channel blockers were administered most frequently (in 73% of children, in 11/24 cases in monotherapy and in 43/48 patients in combination). Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors were most frequently administered in monotheraphy (50%). Nifedipine was preferred in acute blood pressure rise in children.
Conclusion We conclude that incidence of hypertension in dialysed children in Poland is relatively high. The pattern of the treatment was quite uniform, although the efficacy was relatively low (58%).