Clinical Observations Relating to Incidence and Aetiology of Urinary-tract Infections in Children

Abstract

A study was made of 350 children seen at hospital with urinary-tract infections. The yearly rates of referral to a non-teaching hospital amounted to approximately 0.17 per 1,000 boys and 0.4 per 1,000 girls. There was no evidence that the incidence of infection in families with affected children was any greater than in the general population. Infection most often started in infancy, particularly in the newborn. Girls were more often affected than boys except in the first month of life, when the reverse occurred. The incidence of infection in the neonate infant or older child did not appear to be related to the social class of the family, age of parents, birth order, or size of the family. If the height of the children is taken as an indication of their nourishment those in whom infections started after infancy would seem to have been as adequately fed as other children in the community in which they lived. Major structural abnormalities of the urinary tract were found in 45% of the cases investigated, and a further 36% had vesico-ureteric reflux or obstruction of the bladder-neck. Gross abnormalities, especially those causing obstruction, were particularly prevalent in males and in infants whose symptoms began in the first month of life. An acute respiratory-tract infection was noted within a week before the onset of the urinary-tract infection in 13% of the cases. Infection after infancy started more often in the winter than in the summer. © 1966, British Medical Journal Publishing Group. All rights reserved.