Conservative management of high-grade renal trauma

Renal trauma is the most common of urological trauma and accounts for up to 5% of all. The AAST scale is the most widely used to assess renal trauma. This study focuses on high-grade trauma, whose treatment has evolved towards a conservative approach, with techniques such as angioembolization. The aim is to describe the evolution in the management of high-grade renal trauma in all patients treated at La Paz University Hospital from 2001 to 2022.

A descriptive retrospective study was conducted on patients treated at the hospital. The study was divided into two periods (2001-2010 and 2011-2022). A total of 285 patients with renal trauma were collected, of which 54 were high grade. The main variable is the type of management, conservative (embolization) or interventional through nephrectomy.

In the completed series, there was a decrease in radical nephrectomy in high-grade renal trauma from 50% to 13.8% over time, with an increase in embolization from 23,1% to 44,8%. In patients with isolated renal trauma, those treated with embolization increased from 28.6% to 69.2%, while those undergoing radical/partial nephrectomy decreased from 42.8% to 7.69%.

The management of renal trauma has evolved over the years in our center. The number of patients treated by embolization has increased, while the number of complications and nephrectomies has decreased.