A study of 137 cases of renal trauma

Renal injuries are rarely a threat to life and all patients should have an intravenous urogram performed at the time of admission. Patients with a normal urogram may be mobilised for early discharge. Patients with minor abnormalities of the urogram, but in whom all the collecting system is visible, rarely caused any difficulties in management. Should the haematuria persist beyond a week, then arteriography should be performed. The arteriogram sometimes shows the presence of major cortical lacerations with minor abnormalities of the intravenous urogram. If the initial urogram fails to opacify the injured kidney, immediate arteriography is required to exclude a vascular injury. We also believe that early arteriography is advisable in those patients where part of the kidney appears to be non-functioning as it is in this group of patients that operation may become necessary. The indications for renal arteriography are summarised in Table II.