[Percutaneous nephrostomy as a technic for emergency drainage: review of cases]

Percutaneous nephrostomy (PCN) is currently one of the procedures of choice for emergency drainage of the upper urinary tract. Moreover, it permits morphologic and functional diagnostic possibilities as well as a wide variety of new and frequently definitive therapeutic procedures. We report on 58 PCN procedures performed in 55 patients from May 1983 to February 1989. PCN was indicated for complicated or uncomplicated uni- or bilateral supravesical obstruction, with infection and/or azotemia. All patients submitted to PCN for complicated obstruction with infection and/or azotemia showed a marked clinical and analytical improvement. Apart from resolving this emergency, it reduced the morbidity and mortality rate of subsequent surgical treatment of the underlying cause of obstruction because patient status was markedly improved. The major complications, retroperitoneal hematoma and sepsis, were rare. We frequently observed that the catheter had come out or become obstructed in our series. PCN affords the following advantages: it can be performed with local anesthesia; it is a simple technique; there are no absolute contraindications; its morbidity and mortality rates are low; and, it can be easily converted into a permanent procedure. In our view, all the foregoing advantages, as well as its therapeutic and morphologic and functional diagnostic possibilities, make PCN one of the procedures of choice in emergency treatment of upper urinary tract obstruction.