Underlying Causes of Acute Renal Failure in Children Admitted to Abuzar Children's Hospital in Ahvaz

Acute renal failure (ARF) can be pre-renal, intrinsic renal or post-renal in etiology. The aim of the study was to assess the causes of ARF in patients admitted to Abuzar Children’s Hospital in Ahvaz, a referral center in the South Western of Iran. Subjects and The records of patients managed as ARF were reviewed in our center from 2003 to 2006. ARF was defined as doubling of baseline serum creatinine associated with oliguria. A patient with evidences of chronic kidney disease was excluded. Based on the data, these causes were categorized in 3 groups as: pre-renal, intrinsic renal and post-renal.Totally 113 admitted patients had the criteria for ARF. There were 77 (68%) males and 36 (32%) females (M/F: 2.2). The mean age was 6.8 years (ranging from 10 days to 15 years), but most of the patients (34.5%) were 5-10 years old. The underlying causes of ARF were 74.4% intrinsic, renal 18.6% pre-renal and 7% post- renal. Among 84 patients with intrinsic renal failure, 63 (55.7 %) had acute glomerulonephritis (AGN). The underlying causes of ARF in our region were different from other parts of the world. The most common causes of ARF were AGN and ATN due to scorpion sting and severe dehydration secondary to acute gastroenteritis. Therefore, most of these cases can be preventable by improving primary health care and by early and prompt treatment of infection and dehydration.