EFFECTS OF UNILATERAL NEPHRECTOMY IN TREATMENT OF HYPERTENSION

Abstract

As a result of the experiments of Goldblatt¹ by which he demonstrates that hypertension can be produced in experimental animals by the application of a silver clamp to one or both renal arteries and of the publication of papers by Longcope² and Weiss and Parker³ indicating the role of pyelonephritis in the pathogenesis of hypertension, a new approach to the treatment of hypertension in selected cases was gained, which at that time gave promise of considerable success. Physicians began to search especially for unilateral renal lesions in patients with elevated blood pressure in the hope of relieving the hypertension by removal of the affected kidney. Butler,⁴ in 1937, was apparently the first to report a cure of hypertension by removal of a single pyelonephritic kidney. Since that time many reports have appeared in the literature concerning the treatment of hypertension by unilateral nephrectomy, and many more