Injury - kidney and ureter

Excessive buildup of body waste products, such as uric acid (that can occur with gout or with treatment of bone marrow, lymph node, or other disorders) can also damage the kidneys.

Inflammation (irritation with swelling and presence of extra immune cells) caused by immune responses to medications, infection, or other disorders may also injure the structures of the kidney, usually causing various types of glomerulonephritis or acute tubular necrosis (tissue death).

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Injury to the kidney may result in short-term damage with minimal or no symptoms. Alternately, it can be life-threatening because of bleeding and associated shock, or it may result in acute renal failure or chronic renal failure.

Ureteral injuries (injuries to the tubes which carry urine from the kidneys to the bladder) can also be caused by trauma (blunt or penetrating), medical procedures, and other disease processes in the retroperitoneum. The traumatic injuries should be explored, if the patient is undergoing laporatomy for another indicated intra-abdominal injury, and the index of suspicion is high.

Medical therapies (such as OB/GYN surgeries, prior radiation or chemotherapy, and previous abdominopelvic surgeries) are risk factors for ureteral injuries. In other cases, extraperitoneal disease processes (such as retroperitoneal fibrosis (RPF), retroperitoneal sarcomas, or metatstatic lymph node positive cancers) can interfere with normal ureteric processes and cause obstruction hydroureteronephrosis (swelling of ureter and kidney from urinary backflow).