Managing End-Stage Kidney Disease in Children with Chronic Kidney Disease

Eventually, chronic kidney disease progresses to end-stage kidney disease, a condition in which the kidneys can no longer function on their own. Your child’s physician at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone carefully monitors the condition to prevent chronic kidney disease from progressing too rapidly.

When medication and nutritional strategies are no longer sufficient to prevent end-stage kidney disease, your child may require kidney transplantation or hemodialysis.

Kidney Transplantation

When possible, our kidney specialists recommend kidney transplantation for children with end-stage kidney disease. This procedure can vastly improve a child’s quality of life and chance of survival.

In this procedure, surgeons give your child a kidney from a donor, often a sibling or another family member who has two healthy kidneys and the same type of human leukocyte antigen, a protein found in cells. This prevents your child’s immune system from attacking the new kidney tissue as it would any foreign substance.

If a relative cannot donate a kidney, your child may be placed on a waiting list for a kidney from an unrelated donor.

After the procedure, your child takes medication to suppress the immune system and prevent the body from rejecting the new organ.

Our doctors can determine if your child is eligible and healthy enough for this procedure. They can also help make arrangements at a nearby medical center that performs kidney transplantation in children.

Hemodialysis

If a donor kidney cannot be located, our doctors may refer you to another medical center that performs hemodialysis for children on an outpatient basis. In this treatment, a machine filters your child’s blood, removing waste products and other substances that the kidneys can’t filter on their own.

In children with end-stage kidney disease, hemodialysis may be needed three to four times per week. This treatment is discontinued if your child has a successful kidney transplant.