During an examination, doctors discovered a 3e kidney in a 38-year-old Brazilian man. An extremely rare case, reported less than 100 times in the scientific literature, but totally benign for health.
When a 38-year-old man presented with intense lower back pain at Rim Hospital in São Paulo (Brazil), he had no idea what was in store for him. By performing a scan of the bottom of the backback, doctors first notice that a spinal disc has actually come out of its location, causing a herniated disc. But they also make a much more unexpected discovery: instead of having two kidneys like most people, the patient has three. The left kidney, in its normal location, is accompanied by two fused kidneys in the center of the pelvispelvis.
Perfectly normal kidney function
Normally, each kidney is connected to the bladder by a narrow channel called the ureter, through which urine is discharged. In this patient, one of the pelvic kidneys is well connected directly to the bladder, but the other is connected to the ureter that descends from the left kidney. An anatomical oddity which does not seem to affect the normal functioning of the kidneys, note the doctors in their report published in The New England Journal of Medicine. “ The rate of creatininecreatinine0.9 mg per deciliter, is within the normal range of 0.6 to 1.0 mg per deciliter ”, says the report.
Supernumerary kidney: a very rare congenital anomaly
While many people live with only one kidney following a ablationablation for medical reasons or organ donation, having a third kidney is an extremely rare phenomenon: less than 100 cases have been reported in the scientific literature, according to a 2013 study published in The Internet Journal of Radiology and which related a similar case. As this condition most of the time does not cause any symptomsymptomthe supernumerary kidney is discovered incidentally during a routine examination as here.
Most often, the extra kidney results from a anomalyanomaly during the process ofembryogenesisembryogenesis. In the case of the Brazilian patient, doctors suggest that the left kidney must have divided prematurely from the budbud left ureteral. “ Additionally, the right and lower left kidneys have fused together and are not mounted normally during development. ”, says the report.
If the system works fairly well in the majority of cases, Tea InternetInternet Journal of Radiology reports the case of a patient where the ureter was disconnected from the bladder and opened into the vaginavagina, leading to urinary incontinence. Other associated abnormalities include vaginal and ureteral atresia (blocked opening), a anusanus non-perforated, a coarctation of the aorta or even a “shaped” kidney. ironiron on horseback.”
The Brazilian patient, for his part, left the hospital with a analgesicanalgesic oral to treat herniated discherniated disc. A condition much more annoying than his third kidney…
