Study Shows Most Children With Kidney Disease Are Being Given Drugs That Are Toxic To The Kidneys!
Source: Thailand Medical News Dec 13, 2019 4 years, 11 months, 1 week, 1 day, 17 hours, 3 minutes ago
An British analysis of records from primary care practices in the country found that many
children with
kidney disease are prescribed medications that may be
toxic to their
kidneys. The findings, which appear in an upcoming issue of
CJASN, suggest that research is needed to determine whether these medications are necessary and appropriate, or if alternatives could be prescribed instead.
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For young
children and teenagers with
chronic kidney disease (
CKD), it's important to limit intake of medications that can damage the
kidneys. To study this issue, Dr Claire Lefebvre, MDCM (University of Montreal) and her colleagues analyzed 1997-2017 data on children who received care at general primary care practices in the United Kingdom. Children with
CKD were matched 1:4 with patients without
CKD. The researchers labeled medications as Category A (consistently recognized as
toxic to the
kidneys) and Category B (recognized as potentially
toxic to the
kidneys).
The detailed analysis included 1,018 patients with newly diagnosed
CKD who were matched to 4,072 patients without
CKD. Over an average follow-up of 3.3 years, 26% of patients with
CKD and 15% of patients without
CKD were prescribed one or more Category A medications. When considering Category B medications (which include Category A medications), 71% of patients with
CKD and 50% of patients without
CKD received at least one medication during follow-up.
The shocking results showed that the rate of Class A prescriptions was 71 per 100 person-years and 8 per 100 person-years in
CKD and non-
CKD patients, respectively. (A person-year is the number of years of follow-up multiplied by the number of people in the analysis.) The respective rates of Class B prescriptions were 278 vs. 44 per 100 person-years. Analyses revealed that children with
CKD were prescribed medications that were potentially
toxic to the
kidneys at a rate that was 4-times higher than in children without
CKD.
Dr. Lefebvre told
Thailand Medical News, "We have shown that medications potentially
toxic to the
kidney are prescribed at high rates to
children with
kidney disease, suggesting the need for increased awareness among physicians and patients about this problem. We hope this research will encourage future studies evaluating the reasons for these high rates and, eventually, the development of clinical decision support systems and physician education programs to
reduce inappropriate nephrotoxic medication prescribing in
children with
CKD."
The researchers also said that this issue was not restricted in Britain alone but also in many European countries , US and Asia as well.
Reference : "Primary Care Prescriptions of Potentially Nephrotoxic Medications in Children with Chronic Kidney Disease," DOI: 10.2215/CJN.03550319
