A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 4

by Unknown

The most efficient aid to diagnosis, when it is of importance that such should be accurately made, is the aspirator-needle, which will procure a fluid more or less characteristic of the tumor into which it is thrust. In hydro-nephrosis the contents are a somewhat dilute urine, with perhaps mucus; in a solid tumor, blood, with pieces of tissue recognizable by the microscope; in a cystic tumor, fluid which is perhaps somewhat urinous, but much more changed than in simple hydro-nephrosis, and perhaps containing solid-looking bodies with concentric and radiating striation; in hydatid cysts, hooks and fragments of scolices; in ovarian cysts, the various contents, fluid and semi-fluid, but not urinous, generally found therein.

With all these means, however, cases will occasionally arise in which expert diagnosticians may be lead astray, and the difficulties become considerably greater when the dilated pelvis is that of a displaced or unusually-placed kidney. Such cases have been subjected to operation under the impression that an ovarian cyst was present.

The medical TREATMENT of hydro-nephrosis is nil. In many cases nothing is demanded by the immediate necessities of the case, and atrophy, if it be probable that only one kidney is involved, may be allowed to take place without interference. It is possible that in some instances manipulation of the tumor might relieve the obstruction and allow the tumor to subside when a slight twist or angle in the ureter is the cause. The fact of an occasional spontaneous subsidence of such a tumor shows that something of this kind has taken place.

The surgical treatment of affections of the lower urinary passages, as both a prophylactic and therapeutic measure, has already been spoken of under the head of Pyelitis. It would, however, be only in a minority of cases of pure hydro-nephrosis that the seat of obstruction could be efficiently reached by surgery.

Puncture and aspiration of the sac may very properly be resorted to, and may prove of value—in the first place, as a more or less temporary relief; and secondly, as a means of re-establishing the flow through the natural passages by the relief of pressure and consequent opening of the valvular fold, which has occasionally been observed at the junction of the ureter with the pelvis.

In a case where the obstruction is known to be irremediable, and where the hydro-nephrosis, if existing only on one side, is likely to increase, it is not desirable to make the puncture too early or to repeat it too frequently, since by allowing the pressure to increase the atrophy of the kidney will be more rapidly accomplished, and the need of frequently emptying the sac will not arise so often in the future. On the other hand, if there is a prospect of a restoration, if both kidneys are affected, or if the kidney not involved in the hydro-nephrosis is known to be seriously impaired in function, and it is desirable to preserve the secreting structure as long as possible, the punctures should be so arranged as to keep the pressure at its minimum. This must, however, be regarded as a temporary expedient. The puncture may be made either from the back or front, though in most cases the latter position, if the puncture be made with a small clean needle, would be the more convenient, and equally safe notwithstanding its traversing the peritoneum.

A hydro-nephrosis may be treated either by removal or by drainage. Both of these methods have been resorted to, and are to be employed according to the circumstances of the individual case. A pyo-nephrosis naturally demands interference more peremptorily and more promptly than a simple hydro-nephrosis, because it exposes the patient to the dangers not only of its pressure and of its tendency to destruction of the renal substance, but to those more urgent ones of purulent infection or of perforation and perinephritic abscess. Removal is to be undertaken by the ordinary rules of laparotomy. Drainage has been arranged in cases where removal was impossible or unadvisable by stitching the edges of an opened sac to the external wound. It is possible that the choice between the two operations can be made only after the primary incisions and explorations have advanced sufficiently to enable the extent of adhesions and the amount of healthy renal substance to be approximately determined.

Staples of Dubuque states, on the basis of 71 cases collected by him, that "63 per cent. of patients operated on are cured by lumbar nephrectomy, 68 per cent. by open methods in general, and up to date 100 per cent. by either lumbar incision and drainage or the creation of a fistula."

Malignant Growths.