Children with chronic organ failure possibly ending in organ transplantation: a survey in an Italian region of 5,000,000 inhabitants

Abstract

Aim: The Italian Piedmont region sponsored in 2005 a population-based registry to assess the epidemiology of childhood chronic organ failure involving kidneys, liver, heart or lungs.

Methods: Patients in chronic organ failure who were younger than 18 years were selected, and entered the registry when accomplishing the standard failure criteria for each organ. The cases were reported by the general paediatricians of the region and integrated with the data gathered by the Children University Hospital, a tertiary care centre.

Results: In Piedmont (647,727 inhabitants < 18 years), a total of 146 children (217 cases per million of paediatric population) were found to be affected by chronic organ failure (mean age 10 years; range 0-17). The organ failure involved kidneys in 68 subjects (48%), liver in 24 (17%), heart in 21 (15%) and lungs in 28 (20%), and was severe in 32 subjects (6 on transplantation waiting list). The most represented disease leading to chronic renal failure was renal hypodysplasia (79%). Chronic liver failure was mostly caused by biliary atresia (30%), autoimmune hepatitis (25%) and Wilson's disease (21%). Dilated cardiomyopathy (62%) and surgically treated congenital cardiopathy were the two leading causes of chronic heart failure. The most represented disease leading to chronic lung failure was cystic fibrosis (89%).

Conclusion: This is the first report of the literature focusing on the epidemiology of chronic organ failure in children encompassing a region of 4,000,000 inhabitants. This clinical condition is rare, but medically and socially very demanding not only in childhood but the life along, as most of these patients will need solid organ transplantation decades later.