Renal Artery Aneurysm in a 13-year-old Child

ABSTRACT

Primary renal artery aneurysm has been estimated to account for an incidence of 0.015-1% with associated morbidities including renovascular hypertension and rupture. Renovascular hypertension associated renal artery aneurysms in children is not a common disease. In patients with complicated renal vascular disease, renal autotransplantation has been used as an alternative to percutaneous transluminal angioplasty, which may be hazardous in these situations. We report a case of a renal artery aneurysm in a 13-year-old Korean child presenting hypertension detected during school health examination. Preoperative workup demonstrated a 2.8x2.1x1.9 cm saccular aneurysm in the right renal hilum that was not amendable to endovascular repair. A surgical strategy including extracorporeal renal artery reconstruction with autotransplantation was applied in order to restore renal artery anatomy and to treat renovascular hypertension. Immediately he complained of severe right flank pain and postoperative doppler sonography revealed lack of perfusion. On the 5th day after autotransplantation, the patient underwent a transplant nephrectomy. He was well postoperatively and was found to have a normal kidney function and stable blood pressure control without antihypertensive medication. This is the first pediatric case of renal artery aneurysm in Korea who underwent extracorporeal repair followed by autotransplantation failure. More pediatric cases with renal artery aneurysm should be reported to identify therapeutic outcome and long term prognosis.