Experimental Renal Insufficiency Produced by Partial Nephrectomy

A review of the literature of experimental nephritis shows that investigators have failed to produce chronic renal lesions in experimental animals comparable to those noted in man. Chemicals and toxins may cause an acute fatal condition or one from which the animal will recover, but the most promising procedure seems to lie in the removal or destruction of renal tissue. The literature dealing with the effects of experimental renal insufficiency induced by the operative removal of kidney tissue contains conflicting conclusions and results. The reasons for many of the differences can be accounted for by the lack of controlled experimental conditions, involving the dietary regimen, the amount of kidney tissue removed, the period of experimentation and the type of animal used. Since the efforts of many investigators to produce consistently such signs as hypertension, cardiac hypertrophy, polyuria, albuminuria, etc., have been unsuccessful or only partially successful, a series of experiments