URINARY TRACT INFECTION IN CHILDREN

To study the influence of successful ureterovesicoplasty on incidence of recurrent urinary infection, two groups of infected children were compared in this regard before and after urologic evaluation. Of 280 new pediatric urologic hospital admissions, 55.6% had urinary tract infections. Sixty-six of these 156 infected children had vesicoureteral reflux. Bacteriologic localization of infection site was performed in both children with and without reflux at the time of diagnostic cystoscopy. Both groups were specifically treated with short-term antibiotic therapy and empiric urethral dilation. Operative vesicoureteroplasty was carried out in 62 children with reflux, with an overall cure rate of 83.8%. Distal urethral stenosis was not a contributing factor in this population nor did urethral caliber relate to the incidence of reflux. Only 3 of 35 children without reflux were found to have bacteriologically proved upper urinary tract infection. Similarly, only 32% of these children without reflux had clinical histories suggestive of recurrent pyelonephritis. In the children with reflux undergoing bacteriologic localization while infected, no nonrefluxing ureters were found infected, and only one third of the refluxing ureters so studied had proved upper urinary tract infection. Historical evidence for clinical pyelonephritis was present in 79% of the population with reflux; but, after successful cure of reflux, only 7% of these children continued to have pyelonephritic episodes. The long-term incidence of recurrent urinary tract infection was virtually identical, however, in the children undergoing successful antireflux surgery and the children without reflux following ureteral dilation. This relationship indicates that reflux plays little role in the etiology of bacteriunia but has a profound influence on urinary tract infection morbidity in children.