HYPERTENSION AND CHRONIC ATROPHIC PYELONEPHRITIS: RESULTS OF NEPHRECTOMY

The experiments of Goldblatt 1 and others 2 who have shown that hypertension may be produced in dogs by partial constriction of the renal arteries by means of metal clamps have stimulated a more careful search for primary localized renal disease, particularly chronic pyelonephritis, in human beings with so-called essential hypertension. Although there is no evidence of chronic pyelonephritis in the majority of cases of essential hypertension, several investigators (Longcope, 3 Butler 4 and Weiss and Parker 5 ) have felt that the association of these conditions was frequent enough to be more than incidental. Butler has reported a case in which hypertension was associated with unilateral chronic pyelonephritis in a child aged 7 years. Surgical removal of the affected kidney was followed by return of blood pressure to normal; the pressure had remained normal for twenty months at the time of Butler's report. Barney and Suby 6 have reported a