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Rapidly progressive acute nephritic syndrome is one of the most aggressive forms of glomerulonephritis. Its clinical picture includes hematuria, proteinuria, edema and systemic arterial hypertension. Despite being rare in children, a significant percentage of patients progress to chronic kidney disease, which eventually requires dialysis and kidney transplantation. The aim of this study is to compare the morbidity of children up to 14 years of age reported with acute and rapidly progressive nephritic syndromes in the northeast compared to other regions of Brazil.
This is an ecological study based on data from the Department of Informatics of the DATASUS (Brazilian public health system data set) regarding hospital morbidity due to acute and rapidly progressive nephritic syndromes in children up to 14 years of age from 2010 to 2020.
According to the available data, from 2010 to 2020, a total of 36,721 cases of rapidly progressive acute nephritic syndrome in Brazil were registered. Of this total amount, the Northeast region had the highest incidence, affecting 17,451 children, followed by the north with 8233, southeast with 7390, central-west with 2364 and south with 1283 cases. Rapidly progressive acute nephritic syndrome, despite being considered rare in the child population, constitutes a serious pediatric public health problem throughout Brazil, especially in the Northeast, which can be associated with high incidence of infectious diseases.
This study highlights the importance of encouraging debate about this important issue, which may be considered as a neglected kidney disease in some regions, in association with infectious etiology, especially in the pediatric population.