Renal Infarction of Traumatic Origin

Renal infarction in itself is not unusual. Its occurrence as the direct result of trauma is rare. Of 376 cases, in the great majority of which renal infarction was secondary to cardiac disease, in only 2 was it due to trauma. In Aschner's review,1von Recklinghausen is quoted as reporting the autopsy of an 8 year old boy who died eight days after a severe fall. The left renal artery showed a circular injury in the wall. Distal to this there was extensive thrombosis of all branches, and there was complete necrosis of the kidney. Barney and Mintz,2in their study of Massachusetts General Hospital protocols, found a similar instance of a man who died eight days after a fall on his back. The clinical picture was that of ruptured kidney, with shock, hematuria and the finding in the right flank of a mass. At autopsy a large