Echocardiographic findings in children ill with acute postinfectious glomerulonephritis.

There are many studies about heart dysfunction and its significance in chronic renal diseases, but only few data regards cardiac involvement in acute glomerular diseases. The aim of this study was to assess echocardiographic changes in children with acute postinfectious glomerulonephritis (APGN), and the relationship of those changes to blood pressure (BP), edema and glomerular filtration rate (GFR). Echocardiography was performed on 127 patients on admission to the hospital, on a random sample consisting of 51 patients after 6-8 weeks, and 124 controls. In the acute phase, APGN patients had a greater left ventricular (LV) internal end-diastolic diameter (LVIDd) (P=0.022), interventricular septum thickness (IVSd) (P=0.038), LV mass (LVM) (P=0.0001), longer early diastolic flow deceleration time (DT) (P=0.0001), and higher numbers of cases with mitral regurgitation (MR) (P=0.0001) and pericardial effusion (P=0.0001) in comparison with the controls. Changes were more evident in the youngest patients. At follow-up after 6-8 weeks, echocardiographic parameters significantly improved, but LV posterior wall thickness, IVSd, LV end-diastolic volume, LVM and DT remained greater than in the controls. GFR and edema influenced echocardiographic parameters. In conclusion, in a group of children ill with APGN, increases in left ventricular dimensions, wall thickness, LVM and changes in the left ventricular diastolic function related to edema and GFR were found. Whether different treatment regimens effect these changes requires further study.