[The surgical treatment of renal artery fibrodysplasia. The immediate and late results].

Between November 1977 and April 1992, thirty patients carrying several forms of renal artery fibrodysplasia underwent surgical treatment. The series is composed of thirteen male and seventeen female, aged between 1 and 51 years (mean age 32). All patients had arterial hypertension, which was not relieved by medical therapy, consisting in the administration of an average of 2.9 antihypertensive drugs per patients. Bilateral renal artery lesions were diagnosed in ten patients (33.3%). The remaining twenty patients (66.6%) had unilateral lesions, one of which involved a congenital single kidney, making a total of forty renal arteries affected by the disease. Surgical procedures consisted in renal artery revascularization in thirty-one kidneys, in aneurysmectomy alone or associated with aorto-renal bypass in six cases, and in a nephrectomy as a single procedure in one case. Three kidneys were considered lost and were left untouched. There was no operative mortality. Evaluated between 1 and 173 months following the operation (mean 79 months/6.6 years) twenty-six patients (86.6%) were classified as either cured or improved. Only two patients (6.6%) did not get any improvement with the surgical treatment. Two patients whose condition after the operation was considered satisfactory were lost to follow-up. The results of this experience are compared with other series published in the international literature, as well as with the percutaneous transluminal angioplasty which has been regarded as an alternative to arterial reconstructive surgery.