The effect of clonidine on tubular obstruction in postischemic acute renal failure in the rabbit demonstrated by microradiography and microdissection.

Acute renal failure was produced in vasopression-pretreated rabbits by clamping the left renal pedicle for one hour and removing the opposite kidney. Treatment with clonidine, as antihypertensive drug that blunts the kidney's response to vasopressin, resulted in significantly higher creatinine clearance and urine flow rate in the first 6 hours after unclamping. Clonidine (30 microgram/kg given intravenously 30 minutes before unclamping) also significantly lessened the number of hyaline casts in outer medullary tubules and inner medullary loops of Henle 6 hours after unclamping and reduced the number of abnormal tubular contours in microadiograms produced by infusing barium sulfate into the renal artery at sufficient pressure to rupture glomerular capillaries, causing an escape of contrast material into the tubules. The spaces consistently observed between the ends of barium columns and hyaline casts in microdissection studies and the great lengths of the hyaline casts suggest that hyaline casts obstruct the flow of tubular fluid. Clonidine treatment resulted in fewer, shorter, and thinner hyaline casts. These results indicate that tubular obstruction by hyaline casts plays an important role in early postischemic acute renal failure, and that clonidine's beneficial effect is due in part to a reduction in cast formation.