Urological problems (conditions affecting the kidneys, ureter, bladder, urethra, penis, and testes) can be divided into kidney (renal) and bladder conditions, and genital conditions. And many can be diagnosed in utero (in the womb).
At the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, our team of specially trained pediatric urologists evaluate and treat conditions that include (but aren't limited to):
- abnormalities of the bladder (such as exstrophy, a defect that causes the bladder to protrude through the abdominal wall)
- hydronephrosis (the enlargement of one or both kidneys, which may be caused by an obstruction or by a problem in the developing urinary tract)
- multicystic dysplastic kidney (MCDK, when large cysts develop in a kidney that hasn’t developed properly, eventually causing it to stop working)
- vesicoureteral reflux (the abnormal flow of urine from the bladder back into the ureters and sometimes the kidneys)
We also treat genital abnormalities like:
- ambiguous genitalia (a birth defect in which the outer genitals don't have the typical appearance of either a boy or a girl)
- hypospadias (a condition in boys in which the opening that carries urine out of the body—the urethra—is on the underside, rather than the tip, of the penis)
- posterior urethral valves obstruction (PUV—a narrowing or obstruction of the urethra that affects only boys)
- undescended testes (UDT, also called “cryptorchidism”—when the testes, which form inside the abdomen, fail to move down into the scrotal sac)
To diagnose and treat many urological conditions, we use state-of-the-art technology, including minimally invasive techniques.