BILATERAL CORTICAL NECROSIS OF THE KIDNEYS FOLLOWING TREATMENT OF AN UNUSUAL CASE OF HEART BLOCK

Abstract

A woman with partial heart block and Stokes-Adams seizures was studied by means of a continuously operating direct writing Cardiette and the response to a variety of drugs noted (subcut. and intraven. atropine; subcut., intraven. and intracardiac epinephrine; oral digitoxin; intraven. aminophylline; and intramusc. BaCl2). The patient expired on the 11th hospital day and at autopsy the significant findings were a pancarditis along the lines of the needle traces with a mural thrombus on one injured endocardial area, an unusually fatty myocardium, and bilateral cortical necrosis of the kidneys. Epinephrine may have been a factor in the pathogenesis of the renal lesion in the patient.