Chapter 5: Demography of the UK Paediatric Renal Replacement Therapy Population in 2009

Aims: To describe the demographics of the paediatric RRT population under the age of 16 years in the UK and to analyse changes in demography with time. Methods: Extraction and analysis of data from the UK Renal Registry (UKRR). Results: There were 751 children <16 years old with established renal failure (ERF) in the UK in December 2009. The reported prevalence under the age of 16 years was 65 per million age related population (pmarp) and the reported incidence 9.3 pmarp. The incidence and prevalence for South Asian patients was much higher than that of the White and Black populations. Of the patients for whom a primary renal diagnosis had been reported, renal dysplasia±reflux was the most common cause of ERF accounting for 34.0% of prevalent cases. There has been growth in treatment numbers in all paediatric renal centres between 1995 and 2010. Whilst the rate of transplantation within 90 days of commencing RRT has remained at around 25–30% of patients, the use of HD has increased by 4% at the expense of PD. Conclusions: The paediatric ERF population continued to expand with a slow increase in both incidence and prevalence rates. The high incidence in patients from ethnic minority groups will lead to a greater proportion of the population being from these groups in time. To maintain the high proportion of engrafted patients it will be necessary to encourage living donation in the ethnic minority population.