Renal venous thrombosis and infarction in the newborn.

Most recent reports have described one (Heller, 1923; Aschner, 1927; Nordwall, 1933; Hepler, 1934; Marshall and Whapham, 1936; Behr, 1938); two (Petramand, 1923) or three (Oppenheim, 1920) cases occurring in the first year of life, and eight of these occurred in the neonatal period. A few of the older European workers found the condition more frequently and this was discussed by Oppenheim and by Faerber and Bussel (1930). The condition is, indeed, not rare and Cruickshank (1930) found fifteen examples among thirty cases of visceral thrombosis encountered in 800 neonatal deaths. Barenberg, Greenstein, Levy and Rosenbluth (1941) had five cases in the newborn in twenty-five autopsies in epidemics of diarrhoea complicated by secondary infections. Campbell (1937) noted eighteen cases under six months in the records of one hospital. Later he reported (Campbell and Matthews, 1942) two unilateral cases treated by nephrectomy. He did not distinguish cases with and without pyelonephritis. Pyelonephritis was responsible for the four cases reported by Schr6der (1926). No detailed description of the lesions was given by Cruickshank or by Campbell. Oppenheim and Schroder have both discussed the pathology of special varieties of the condition in infancy and Behr has studied renal venous thrombosis at all ages, but no representative series of cases in the newborn has been studied.