Urinary screening of elementary school students in Taicang, China

Background: Chronic kidney disease in children is a severe progressive disease that influences the growth, development, and life quality of patients. This study aimed to explore the detection rate of proteinuria and hematuria in elementary school students in Taicang, China. Materials and methods: From 2015 to 2019, urine specimens were selected from 11,753 pupils in Taicang. The samples were tested for proteinuria and hematuria by applying single urine tests and urine sediment microscopic examinations. The observation results were divided into three groups: hematuria, proteinuria, and co-existing hematuria and proteinuria. In addition, kidney biopsies were carried out. Results: The positive rate of urinary abnormalities was 0.842% (99 cases), of which there were 51 cases (0.433%) of proteinuria, 42 cases (0.357%) of hematuria, and six cases (0.051%) of co-existing proteinuria and hematuria. In terms of gender, of the 99 cases, 63 were female students (1.142%) and 36 were male students (0.577%). Additionally, the age distribution results indicated that the prevalence of urine abnormalities in each age group from age 7 to age 13 were 11.11%, 12.12%, 12.12%, 16.16%, 29.29%, 18.18% and 3.03%, respectively. Furthermore, one immunoglobin A nephropathy case was certified by renal biopsy assay in the follow-up at six months. Conclusions: The urine screening revealed that abnormal proteinuria was the main form of urinary abnormalities in elementary school students from Taicang. Urine screening is necessary for early detection and intervention of kidney disease. [Ethiop. J. Health Dev. 2020; 35(2):000-000]