[Autotransplantation in the treatment of isolated dissection of the renal artery].

Isolated dissection of renal artery is uncommon; 150 cases were reported in the literature, whose 2/3 diagnosed during patient's life and 1/3 post mortem, during autopsy. From 1976 to 1988 4 cases of isolated dissection of the renal artery were diagnosed and treated in our Institution. Three men and one woman with age ranging from 39 to 46 yrs (mean age 41.75) were seen at our Institution for intense abdominal pain and blood hypertension (mean blood pressure 196.25/113.75 mmHg) of recent occurrence. In 2 cases angiography showed dissection of the left renal artery, with involvement of peripheral branches; in 1 case the dissection involved the right renal artery with complete occlusion of an upper pole branch and upper pole infarction; our youngest patients presented a bilateral dissection, limited to the main trunk on the right side and involving prepelvic and retropelvic branches on the left side. Surgical treatment consisted of renal autotransplantation in the iliac fossa after extracorporeal reconstruction of the arterial pedicule; a branched hypogastric graft was used in 3 patients; in the patient with bilateral dissection an hypogastric graft was used on the right side and a sapehenous graft on the left side (3 months later). Partial nephrectomy was also performed in the patient having right upper pole infarction. Histologic examination showed that dissection always started from lesions of the lamina media. All patient were alive from 6 to 48 months after renal revascularization, with normalization of blood pressure (mean BP 125/80 mmHg); postoperative angiographic control showed thrombosis of 2 small branches in 1 case and partial stenosis of 3 anastomoses in another patient.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)