[Acute renal failure--clinical aspects and morphology]

This study reports the pathological-anatomical diagnoses in 180 cases in which a diagnosis of acute renal failure (ARF) had been made on clinical grounds. The clinical and pathological diagnoses were in agreement in 43.3% of the cases. In 56.7%, the pathological-anatomical diagnosis differed from the clinical diagnosis. Glomerulonephritis (GN) was particularly often concealed behind ARF, in particular rapidly progressive GN, but also acute interstitial nephritis or hemolyticuremic syndrome. In addition, the clinical diagnoses in cases with a pathological-anatomical diagnosis of ARF are presented. Finally, the clinical diagnoses made in cases with a pathological-anatomical diagnosis of GN with ARF are reported. It is thus shown that the pathologist is in a position to distinguish GN with true compensated retention from GN with transient ARF simulating compensated retention.