Nitrogen retention in nephritis in children

Abstract

The writers have studied the urinary excretion of nitrogenous products in nephritic children and conclude that retention, such as is described for all of these components in adults by Mosenthal, Folin, Foster and others for cases of nephritis does not obtain in children. It is to be expected that as far as some of the components are concerned, such as creatin, the adult and child condition would be different for the metabolism of creatin in children differs from that of the adult. We have found that retention of creatin and creatinin is a matter of twenty-four hours or less and that no retention occurs beyond that time in the cases examined. The excretion of these constituents was followed by studying 24-hour specimens, supplemented by shorter time specimens and temperature, food, etc., were checked in all cases. In none of the cases studied were the creatin results vitiated by the acetone nor by the aceto-acetic acid factor, attention to which was duly paid. The figures obtained from the nephritic children were lower than those obtained from a study of a number of normal children from the Child Saving Institute, but this is not interpreted as meaning retention, for immobility in children involves lower nitrogen output in general. The marked divergence in data of creatinin excretion in the nephritic children from day to day is typically different from the figures obtained by others in the adult, for the typical condition in the adult is constancy in amount of excretion, whereas in the children the variation from day to day was marked. The writers are not aware of a similar study having been made previous to the present one.