Antiphospholipid syndrome presenting as unilateral renal artery occlusion: case report and literature review

The objective of this study is to report a case of primary antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) presenting as complete renal artery occlusion, and to review the literature on the subject. We describe the clinical presentation, course and outcome of one patient who presented with resistant hypertension later found to be due to thrombosis and complete occlusion of the left renal artery. We review the medical literature registered in the Medline PubMed database from 1966 to 2004 using keywords: antiphospholipid, Hughes syndrome, kidney, renal, renal artery thrombosis. We describe one patient and analyzed ten well-documented cases of renal artery thrombosis due to APS. Most of the patients were women, at a mean age of 32 years. All but one case had primary APS. The presenting symptom was hypertension in ten cases. Most patients had both lupus anticoagulant and anticardiolipin antibodies. Arterial occlusion was left sided in 55%, right sided in 27% and bilateral in 18%. Renal artery thrombosis is an uncommon presentation of APS. This entity should be considered in the differential diagnosis of severe hypertension.