RIEDEL'S LOBE SIMULATING NEPHROPTOSIS

When scanning the literature for cases of Riedel's lobe of the liver, one finds amazingly few reported. I garnered from those cases that had been reported that the majority showed an error in diagnosis preoperatively; therefore I think it advisable to report these conditions when they do occur, so as to enable the operator to have them in mind when rendering a diagnosis. The lobe was originally described in 1888, by Riedel,1as a linguiform lobulation, or tonguelike prolongation of the anterior margin of the right lobe of the liver. This tonguelike process is attached to the liver proper either by a small bridge of hepatic tissue, or occasionally by merely fibrous tissue. One anatomist, writing in the early eighties, said that it occurred in as high as 30 per cent. of women over 40, but in only 15 per cent. of men. At this time he ascribed the