Cysts arising in the renal corpuscle. A microdissection study.

Cysts of various organs have always attracted attention, if only because of their space-occupying character. In recent times their generally innocuous nature and apparently incidental appearance in many conditions have caused them to be relatively ignored. Nevertheless, apart from their morphological dominance in some conditions, they raise many questions of fundamental nature and importance. An interesting feature of the published material dealing with polycystic kidneys has been the large amount written on causation and mode of formation, with almost complete absence of precise information as to their structure and tissue relations. This is largely due to the difficulty in obtaining such information, though more gross and imprecise observations are easily made. One of the best methods of gaining detailed data at present available is microdissection. Amongst the infrequent published results in which this technique is used are those of Greene (1922), Lambert (1947), Bialestock (1956, 1958, 1960), Oliver (1960), Baxter (1961a, b), Paatela (1961), and Osathanondh and Potter (1964). From these it is apparent that there is a wide range in the distribution of cysts in the nephron and that a study of a large series of cases is necessary to elucidate many of the basic problems. The present paper gives a preliminary statement on some of these