As part of introducing specialised, advanced and world-class medical care for children in Qatar, the division of nephrology and hypertension at Sidra Medicine, a member of Qatar Foundation, has initiated a broad spectrum of advanced medical services to meet the need of sick children with complicated diseases.
“The division of nephrology is currently providing multiple therapies by which the blood of the patient is being treated through advanced devices to filter the blood from the harmful materials that are associated with the child’s disease.
Children with complicated kidney, liver and blood diseases are managed safely on these therapies. The department, also provides dialysis care for children awaiting organ transplantations,” Dr Ahmad Kaddourah, the director of acute extracorporeal therapies at Sidra Medicine, told The Peninsula.
“Children with kidney failure will require dialysis. Dialysis is the treatment needed to purify blood and get rid of excess fluid when kidneys can no longer do that. We have a specialized unit with advanced dialysis machine to take care of children with kidney failure,” said Dr Abubakr Imam, the Nephrology Division Chief.
“However, the above mentioned type dialysis is not the best for children who are critically ill in the intensive care units. These sick children need a slow and continuous purification of the blood over 24 hours. This procedure is called continuous renal replacement therapy which is an established service in Sidra Medicine,” commented Dr Kaddourah.
Not only children with kidney disease can get benefit of these therapies. The division of nephrology also helps children with other organ diseases.
“Liver dialysis is similar to kidney dialysis and allows an individual’s blood to be purified after liver failure. The blood is removed from the body and pumped through a set of filters to purify it.
"The procedure might be considered a life-saving procedure for children presenting with liver failure as it will stabilize the children before they receive a new liver. The procedure will support a pediatric liver transplant program, which is something Sidra Medicine is in the process of establishing in the future,” said Dr Imam.
The nephrology department at also provides a range of other services for patients with other problems related to neurology, rheumatology, hematology and oncology. One of these services is Apheresis.
“This procedure is a process through which the blood of the patient is passed through a machine which separates the blood into its main components. Then we take away the diseased component, replace it with a healthy one and then return it back to the blood circulation of the patient,” said Dr Kaddourah.
“Think of a patient with a blood disorder like sickle cell disease, where their red blood cells which are responsible for carrying oxygen to all parts of the body are not functioning properly.
Through apheresis, we slowly withdraw the patient’s blood through a needle or catheter to be processed by a device where the blood is separated into its main components; red cells, white cells, platelets and plasma.
The red cells, which are the affected component of the blood, are discarded and replaced with healthy red blood cells provided by a blood donor. The donor’s red blood cells circulate back to the patient with the other blood components (white cells, platelets and plasma) through a return needle,” said Dr Kaddourah.
Depending on the original disease, any affected blood component can be exchanged in a similar way.
