Kansas City,
26
June
2020
|
09:06 AM
America/Chicago

Healio: Surveillance kidney biopsies deemed safe for monitoring pediatric transplant recipients

By Melissa Webb

Study results indicated that surveillance biopsies offer a safe way for health care providers to monitor pediatric kidney transplant recipients, allowing for the identification of modifiable pathologies such as subclinical rejection.

“We have been conducting surveillance biopsies for a number of years and wanted to evaluate the risk-benefit ratio of the procedure so that we could properly inform patients and families,” Bradley A. Warady, MD, of the division of pediatric nephrology at Children’s Mercy Kansas City told Healio Nephrology. “This study provides evidence to clinicians caring for pediatric kidney transplant patients on the safety and value of the procedure.”

The safety of the procedure was determined by complications that occurred within 3 months of each surveillance biopsy (major complications included formation of AV fistulas, loss of allograft, infection, intestinal perforation and death; minor complications consisted of “anything that prolonged hospitalization beyond the post-procedural observational stay, including macroscopic hematuria, self-limited perinephric hematomas, transient fever and pain associated with the procedure”).

“Parents and patients have readily accepted performance of the procedure as they recognize that the results of the surveillance biopsy may positively impact the management of their child’s transplant, and the procedure itself is safe with only rare, minor complications,” Warady said.

He noted that researchers from his institution will continue to collect information on the outcomes of these biopsies, while evaluating the impact of the procedure and the subsequent modifications of therapy on long-term transplant outcomes.

 

Read the full story via Healio

Learn more about Nephrology at Children's Mercy