Postoperative medium-term follow-up of patients with bilateral, massive primary vesicorenal reflux and reduced renal function at presentation.

We report the results of a medium-term follow-up study of 52 patients with bilateral, massive primary vesicorenal reflux (PVRR) with renal damage at presentation. Ten infants between 2 and 5 months of age, with a total of 19 renal units, had a temporary vesicostomy followed by ureteral reimplantation after 12-15 months; 42 patients with 81 renal units had primary ureteral reimplantation. The postoperative observation period covered 9.5 years on average (20 months - 21.5 years). The study showed that: (1) urinary specific gravity remained reduced in about 61% of patients; (2) proteinuria improved significantly, in a direct proportion to the favorable evolution of renal function; (3) the frequency of acute pyelonephritis decreased significantly from 98% to 23%. Postoperatively, 27 patients (51%) had one or more episodes of urinary tract infection (UTI) and 12 (23.0%) still had episodes of acute pyelonephritis. (4) At follow-up 7 patients (13.5%) had stable hypertension, while 3 others had unstable hypertension (19.2%); 8 had chronic renal insufficiency or end-stage renal disease. When only adolescents more than 12 years old were considered, the incidence of hypertension increased to 34.4% (10.29). (5) Some renal scarring developed despite successful antireflux surgery, and parenchymal growth, which was severely impaired prior to surgery, restarted although it remained below - 2 standard deviations from the mean. (6) In the overall series glomerular filtration rates (GFR) significantly improved after successful surgery. However, this improvement was much more evident in patients operated upon within the 1st year of life and in those who had had a temporary vesicostomy. In the subgroup of patients operated upon after 6 years of age, successful surgery had no effect on the further decline of renal function when this was already severely compromised. We conclude that early antireflux surgery or, in selected cases, temporary vesicostomy followed by ureteral reimplantation was effective in significantly improving GFR and sharply decreasing febrile UTIs in patients with massive bilateral PVRR and renal damage at presentation.