Circulatory Factors in the Pathogenesis of Experimental Arteriolar Necrosis *

If the renal arteries of normal dogs are ligated, azotemia associated with some degree of hypertension occurs, and death results within a few days. In the heart, gall-bladder, stomach, and intestinal tract, medial necrosis of arterioles may be found together with focal hemorrhages and necrosis of smooth or cardiac muscle. The vascular changes were described by Goldblatt' and have been observed many times in this and other laboratories in animals subjected to severe renal damage.7 Anatomically they differ in no respect from the arteriolar changes often encountered in man in malignant hypertension. Beyond the frequent association of these lesions with hypertension and renal failure, very little is known of their pathogenesis. The experiments to be reported bear on the role of hypertension and of venous circulatory factors in the pathogenesis of experimental arteriolar necrosis in dogs.