Seven Useful Things to Know About Seattle Children’s Nephrology

1. Nephrology’s webpage has new resources for PCPs on hypertension, abnormal kidney function, hematuria and more.

The Nephrology team has updated its referral guidelines and created many new resources for PCPs to help evaluate and/or refer the following conditions:

• Abnormal kidney function (PDF)
• Hematuria (PDF) (including hematuria with proteinuria)
• Hypertension (PDF)
  • Blood pressure tables for children and adolescents (Tables 3 to 5)
• Nephrotic syndrome (PDF)
• Proteinuria (PDF)
  • Algorithm: Proteinuria (PDF)

2. What PCPs should tell families about five common structural kidney problems:

The Nephrology team has prepared scripts to help guide PCPs who are speaking with families whose child has or may have the following conditions:

• Hydronephrosis – Dilation or swelling in the collecting system of the kidney, ranging from very mild to severe
• Horseshoe kidney – Occurs when 2 kidneys are fused together during the first trimester
• Isolated (simple) renal cysts – Common cyst with certain, non-worrisome characteristics; the cyst walls are thin and there are no septa, calcifications or solid matter
• Kidney or renal asymmetry – One kidney is significantly smaller than the other
• Duplicated collecting system (duplex system) – A kidney that has 2 ureters draining the kidney

See Common Structural Kidney Anomalies Detected on Imaging: What to Tell Your Families (PDF).

3. Children with kidney disease need the ppsv23 (pneumovax23) in addition to their primary pneumococcal series (Prevnar) and the seasonal flu shot.

See our flyer for details.

4. Patients with incontinence/bedwetting (enuresis) or UTI should be referred to our Urology program.

Nephrology does not see these patients, although they are commonly referred to us (and we redirect them). Resources to help PCPs manage these patients are available on the Urology referral page.

• UTI algorithm (PDF)

5. Referral basics

The estimated wait time for most new patients is about 1 month; multidisciplinary visits may take longer, up to several months. Patients need a referral to make an appointment. Our Nephrology team sees new patients ages 0 to 17 for hypertension and new patients through age 20 for other diagnoses.

6. Information for patients using ACE inhibitors

There were some incorrect reports in early press coverage regarding the use of ACE inhibitors and COVID-19. See the final recommendations from the American Heart Association.

7. Transplant patients seeking advice regarding COVID-19 should contact their transplant team directly.

The transplant team is giving individualized advice, taking into account local guidance, COVID-19 incidence where the child lives, their immunosuppression/time from transplant, etc.

General information regarding COVID-19 for transplant patients