Focal Bacterial Nephritis (Lobar Nephronia) Presenting as Renal Mass

Kumar, P. Dileep MD
Brown, Leon A. MD

From the Departments of Medicine (pdk) and Pathology (lab), Huron Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio.

Submitted December 13, 1999; accepted in revised form February 15, 2000.

An abstract of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Federation of Medical Research (Experimental Biology 1999) at Washington, DC on April 17-21, 1999.

The Department of Medicine, Huron Hospital, provided financial support for this work.

Correspondence: P. Dileep Kumar, M.D., Department of Medicine, Huron Hospital, 13951 Terrance Road, Cleveland, OH 44112 (E-mail: [email protected]).

American Journal of the Medical Sciences 320(3):p 209-211, September 2000.

A focal infection of the kidney can cause a diagnostic dilemma by mimicking a neoplasm. We describe a case of focal bacterial nephritis (acute lobar nephronia) caused by Escherichia coli in which the diagnosis was confirmed only after surgical exploration. Although the patient had fever on admission, urine and blood cultures were negative and fine needle aspiration of the kidney could not rule out a well-differentiated carcinoma.