Cardiovascular risk factors in children with primary nephrotic syndrome

It has been suggested that patients with nephrotic syndrome (NS) have an increased frequency of cardiovascular risk factors. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of cardiovascular risk factors in children with primary NS.Cross-sectional, descriptive and prospective study. Fifty-five patients with primary NS were included. The presence of overweight/obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemias, hyperglycemia, elevated C-reactive protein and carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) was evaluated. The treatment time, the type of treatment and the number of relapses were analyzed. For statistical analysis chi-square and Spearman's rho were used.The most frequent cardiovascular risk factor was increased carotid IMT (98.1 %), followed by hypertriglyceridemia (54.4 %) and total cholesterol (40 %). Patients with corticosensitive NS had fewer risk factors compared with patients with steroid-resistant NS. There was also a positive correlation of longer time of evolution and number of relapses with the increase in the number of factors.Ninety-eight percent of children with primary NS had at least one cardiovascular risk factor. Certain clinical features, such as steroid-resistant NS, and the time of evolution and treatment, seem to be related to the presence of larger number of risk factors.