The wide spectrum of renal osteodystrophy in children.

When chronic renal failure was a routinely fatal condition little attention needed to be paid to the recognition and management of the associated bone disease. The improved medical and surgical management have prolonged the lives of children with chronic renal disease, but in so doing it has also changed the nature of their biochemical environment. These two factors contribute to an increase in the spectrum of abnormalities we see in the bones of children with renal failure, some of which are still unexplained. It has become even more important for the radiologist to recognize subtle as well as overt alterations in the bony architecture because these will influence the clinical management. This is especially true in children because of the severe growth impairment as well as the bony deformities that result from long-standing renal disease.