Renal Data from Asia-Africa: Urinary screening for asymptomatic renal disorders in pre-school children in Enugu metropolis, South-east Nigeria: Useful or useless

To evaluate the usefulness of simple screening tests such as urinalysis and blood pressure measurement in the early detection of renal disorders in pre-School children,we used a multi-staged random sampling method to select subjects from registered nursery schools within Enugu metropolis in south-east Nigeria. We selected 630 children for this cohort study. There was a prevalence of 2.7%,0% and 1.9% for asymptomatic proteinuria,hematuria and hypertension, respectively. There was no age,gender or social class preponderance (P = 0.44). Hypertension seemed to be limited to children close to the age group of five years (P 0.001). No correlations could be documented between asymptomatic proteinuria,hematuria or hypertension. The prevalence of persistent proteinuria was found to be 1.6% and the mean urinary protein excretion estimation (spot urine protein/creatinine) was 1.88 g/mg ± 0.53,with a mean glomerular filtration rate of 78.7 ± 12.6 mL/min/1.73 m³ . Renal ultrasonography revealed abnormal findings in 30% of the children with persistent proteinuria. Asymptomatic persistent proteinuria with or without hematuria and hypertension could be a presumptive evidence of an underlying renal parenchymal disease and should be properly investigated and followed-up.