Urinary screening of elementary and junior high-school children over a 13-year period in Tokyo.
The School Health Law of Japan was passed in 1974 mandating urine screening of elementary and junior high-school students for the detection of renal disease. A first morning urine was obtained on an annual basis for each individual student for the time period 1974-1986. The prevalence of proteinuria and haematuria among elementary school children was 0.08% and 0.54%, respectively, while junior high-school students demonstrated corresponding prevalences of 0.37% and 0.94%. The theoretical merits of this screening programme include the detection of glomerulonephritis with possible early therapeutic intervention. However, a limitation to this approach is its over-sensitivity where asymptomatic urine abnormalities is found to be 10 times greater in frequency than glomerulonephritis histologically.
Murakami
M
M
Department of Paediatrics, Nippon Medical School Hospital, Tokyo, Japan.
Yamamoto
H
H
Ueda
Y
Y
Murakami
K
K
Yamauchi
K
K
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006417:Hematuria / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D007674:Kidney Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D009393:Nephritis / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D011507:Proteinuria / Q000453:epidemiology; D014556:Urine