Friday, October 23, 2009

Complications of Renal Biopsy


I've had to revise the renal biopsy complication rates that I'm quoting my patients after reading this review.
- Technically, complications occur in 7.4% to 19.5% of patients. These mostly consist of self-limiting macroscopic hematuria or a peri-renal, or subcapsular, hematoma
- AV fistulae occur in as many as 15%, but are usually self-limiting.
- Embolization of a bleeding vessel in needed in 1.5%
- Surgery is required in 0.1 to 0.4%
- Nephrectomy is necessary in 0.06%
- Surprisingly, it seems 33% of complications occur >8 hours post procedure. This is jars with my own experience, as I've mainly worked in institutions that practice day-case biopsies without difficulty.

1 comment:

Conall O' Seaghdha said...

Many thanks for the kind words