Tej Mattoo, MD, professor and chief of Pediatric Nephrology at Wayne State University's School of Medicine and Children's Hospital of Michigan, recently received $267,999 in stimulus funds from the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health for the project, "Primary Vesicoureteral Reflux in Children." To date, NIH has funded over $3 million towards this research project and a separate study on Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis, a disease that attacks the kidney's filtering system.

These funds will allow Mattoo to continue a study started in 2005 that is examining if long-term antibiotics are necessary in children with vesicoureteral reflux (VUR). In addition, the funds will allow recruitment and/or salary support for research coordinators at participating study sites across the country.

Vesicoureteral reflux is a common congenital abnormality that is associated with recurrent urinary tract infections in children. With normal urination, the bladder contracts and deposits the urine through the urethra. In children with VUR, there is an abnormal flow of urine that goes back up into the ureters and sometimes up to the kidneys. This reflux exposes the kidneys to infection, which can cause serious kidney damage. The injury to the kidneys may result in renal scarring, which may cause high blood pressure later in life, or even kidney failure.

"To prevent such damage and long-term effects, patients are currently treated with daily antibiotics for many years depending on the severity of their abnormality," said Mattoo of Troy, Mich. "This collaborative study is testing the hypothesis that prolonged antibiotic prophylaxis does not reduce the frequency of urinary tract infections, nor reduce the risk of renal scarring or reverse VUR in children."
Current treatment for VUR may not be necessary and may cause some harm, including resistance to antibiotics, requiring children to have expensive and painful radiology tests and surgical procedures.

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