Hospital Universitari Vall d’ Hebron - University Hospital Vall d’Hebron

Servei Nefrología Pediátrica. Hospital Infantil. 2ª planta
Passeig de la Vall d’Hebron 119-129
08035 Barcelona, Spain

The Department

The Pediatric Nephrology Service is a department of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital (VHUH) which is a tertiary public referral center. The HUVH is integrated in a Women-Children, General, and Trauma-Orthopedics Teaching Hospital providing multidisciplinary care involving all pediatric and adult medical and surgical sub-specialties. We also work closely with The Pediatric Urology Service which is accredited as national reference service for complex urologic surgeries in children and adolescents.

In our service, we provide care to patients with kidney disease from prenatal to adolescence. We are highly specialized in renal replacement therapies such as dialysis, extracorporeal procedures (plasmapheresis, immune-absorption, and other aphaeresis) and kidney transplants. We provide patient care 24 hours a day, 365 days per year, with pediatric nephrologists and dialysis nurses on-call. Since 1981, we have performed more than 400 pediatric kidney transplantations including infants and also combined liver-kidney transplantation in our program. Our center is accredited as national reference center for rare kidney diseases, severe chronic kidney disease and dialysis in children, pediatric kidney transplantation and complex glomerular diseases.

Our team includes referent renal nurses, clinical research nurses and staff, dieticians, psychologists and social support groups among others.

We are involved in a growing transition program from pediatric care to adult nephrology. The aim of this transition is to empower adolescents, family members and patient advocacy groups for transferring medical care from the pediatric nephrology to adult nephrology service at the same institution. 

Further we are part of the Renal Physiopathology Group at the Vall d'Hebrón Research Institute (VHIR). Our research is focused in the field of Inherited Tubulopathies (Dent disease, Familial hypomagnesemia with hypercalciuria nephrocalcinosis), and rare kidney diseases. We are also a founding member of RenalTube, a research network focused on improving diagnosis and knowledge of Primary Tubulopathies.

We participate in several clinical trials and academic research projects in the field of pediatric kidney and rare kidney diseases.