Hello and welcome to the Zero to Finals podcast. My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be

talking to you about urinary tract infections in children. If you want to follow along with written

notes on this topic, you can follow along at Zero to Finals.com or in the renal and urology

section of the Zero Defininals pediatrics book.

So let's jump straight in.

The urinary tract includes the urethra, bladder, urators and kidneys.

Urinary tract infections are infections anywhere along this pathway, along the urinary tract.

Acute pylonephritis is when the infection affects the tissues of the kidney

and this can lead to scarring in the tissue and consequently a reduction in kidney function.

Cystitis refers to inflammation of the bladder and this can be the result of a bladder infection.

Let's talk about the symptoms. A fever may be the only symptom of a urinary tract infection, especially in young children.

Always consider and exclude a urinary tract infection in a child with a temperature unless there's a clear alternative

source of infection. Babies will present with very non-specific symptoms such as fever, lethargy,

irritability, vomiting, core feeding and urinary frequency. Sides and symptoms in older infants and children are more specific and they can be

fever, abdominal pain, particularly suprapubic pain, vomiting, dysuria or painful urination,

urinary frequency and urinary incontinence.

The diagnosis of acute pylenephritis is made if there is either temperature above 38 degrees Celsius or loin pain or tenderness.

A tom tip for you, it's worth remembering these two criteria for pylenephritis.

It's very important as it affects the way you would investigate a child for recurrent urinary infections

if they've had pylenephritis compared with just a simple urinary tract infection.

Let's talk in more detail about urine samples.

The ideal urine sample is a clean catch sample avoiding contamination.

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