Surgically correctable hypertension of renal origin in childhood

Since 1960, 22 children were treated for surgically correctable hypertension or renal origin. The series included two children with tumors, two with hydronephrosis from ureteropelvic junction obstruction, nine in whom one kidney was atrophic, and nine with renal artery narrowing from fibromuscular dysplasia (with bilateral involvement in two). Hypertension was cured in the cases with tumors and ureteropelvic junction obstruction. It was also cured in four of the nine patients with an atrophic kidney and in five of the nine with a narrow renal artery. In those not cured hypertension was more easily controlled by medication. One patient died from brain hypoxia during surgery. About 10 percent of the children investigated for hypertension at the Massachusetts General Hospital proved to have a surgically correctable cause of renal origin.