National Kidney Foundation: Medical Experts Gather in Atlanta to Improve Clinical Care for Children with Chronic Kidney Disease

Living with kidney disease as an adult is difficult, but living with kidney disease as a child, is almost unbearable, according to Sarah Finlayson, 51, who was just 21 months old when her kidneys failed.

“I was sick, and I didn’t know why,” Sarah says. “My parents never talked about it at home. I didn’t know about diet and nutrition. I was living in the dark. And, I was bullied a lot in school, especially when I was sick. It was such a different experience than being an adult kidney patient.”

Almost 10,000 children and adolescents in the U.S. are living with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). They are 30 times more likely to die than healthy children. 

At the first ever NKF Scientific Workshop on CKD in Children on Dec. 6 and 7 in Atlanta, dozens of professionals in pediatric nephrology, patients, and their parents will gather to use recent children-focused research, the needs inherent in stories like Sarah’s, and new ideas from the meeting participants to make recommendations that will improve the care for kids with the overwhelming disease.

Dr. Bradley A. Warady, MD, Director, Division of Nephrology, Children’s Mercy Kansas City and Professor of Pediatrics University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Medicine, and Dr. Susan Furth, MD, PhD, Director, Division of Nephrology, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, will co-chair the conference.

“Well-controlled clinical trials in children with CKD are scarce, due to the small population and their exclusion from most therapeutic studies,” Warady says. “Therefore, recommendations for clinical care in pediatric nephrology are most often based on small trials and expert opinion, with the latter commonly the product of little published evidence. The time is right to make every effort to enhance the care of children with CKD.”

Read the full story via National Kidney Foundation

Learn more about Pediatric Nephrology at Children's Mercy