Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Porto

Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, Porto University
Largo Prof. Abel Salazar, 4099-001 Porto, Portugal

The Department

Established in 1983, the Pediatric Nephrology Unit of CMIN is one of the largest facilities in Portugal for the treatment of children with kidney diseases and the reference unit for the whole northern region of Portugal. The Unit has an experienced multidisciplinary team of pediatric nephrologists and specialized nurses and is one of the few in the country that can grant the qualification in the sub-speciality of Pediatric Nephrology.

The Pediatric Dialysis Unit includes an Hemodialysis Program with more than 25 years of experience, offering several dialysis techniques to chronic patients and to newborns and children with acute kidney injury or metabolic diseases, providing a full range of acute dialysis techniques. The Peritoneal Dialysis Program provides a 24-hour comprehensive care by trained doctors and nurses, including regular patient assessment and technical training for families, aiming at improving patients’ quality of life and long-term prognosis.

The Pediatric Renal Transplant Program is part of the Renal Transplantation Program of the Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Porto. It is one of the two Pediatric Renal Transplant Reference Centres in the country and integrates the European Reference Network for Pediatric Transplantation – TransplantChild. It has the highest cumulative number of children and adolescents transplanted in Portugal.

The Unit also offers comprehensive diagnostic, treatment and management for children with all types of kidney and hypertensive disorders such as chronic kidney disease, nephrotic syndrome and other glomerular and tubular interstitial diseases, hereditary and genetics conditions, and kidney involvement in systemic diseases. In children with arterial hypertension or cardiovascular risk factors associated with other pathologies this program ensures a complete evaluation of the cardiovascular system and a regular follow-up that promotes a long-term cardiovascular risk reduction.

Being part of an hospital with maternal assistance, the second largest maternity hospital in the country, the Unit is also involved in the multidisciplinary management of several patients with nephro-urological malformations, participating both in the prenatal diagnosis and in the postnatal care and orientation, along with Neonatologists, Nephrologists, Urologists and Pediatric Surgeons.

The Unit has participated in several multicenter, prospective-randomized clinical trials in pediatric and adult nephrology, including kidney transplantation. The members of the Unit are actively involved in basic and translational research, mainly focusing on cardiovascular risk and metabolic syndrome on chronic kidney disease patients, obesity-related kidney injury and diabetic kidney disease.