Testing & Diagnosis for Glomerulonephritis in Children

In addition to a thorough physical examination and complete medical history, your child's physician may order the following diagnostic tests:

• throat culture
• urine tests
• blood tests
• electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) - a test that records the electrical activity of your child's heart, shows abnormal rhythms (arrhythmias or dysrhythmias) and detects heart muscle damage
• renal ultrasound (also called sonography) - a non-invasive test in which a transducer is passed over your child's kidney producing sound waves that bounce off of the kidney and transmit a picture of the organ on a video screen.
• chest x-ray - a diagnostic test which uses invisible X-ray energy beams to produce images of internal tissues, bones and organs onto film.
• renal biopsy - a procedure in which a small sample of tissue is taken from you child's kidney through a needle. We conduct tests on the tissue to determine the specific disease.