Percutaneous aspiration of renal cortical abscess

Two patients with renal cortical abscesses were treated successfully by an intensive antibiotic regimen together with percutaneous aspiration, rather than by the conventional treatment of open drainage, which often is followed by secondary nephrectomy. This adaptation of percutaneous aspiration to the management of renal carbuncle coincides with a change in the causative microorganism which today is often a gram-negative coliform rather than a hematogenously borne staphylococcus, which usually complicates some pre-existing abnormality in the urinary tract.