Renal papillary necrosis in Ipoh.

Previous studies done by the authors have shown that analgesic abuse, RPN and analgesic nephropathy (AN) are prevalent in the Malaysian population. In a survey conducted on three different groups of population, viz., inpatients in the medical wards of General Hospital, Kuala Lumpur, the people from Kampong Pandan and two rubber estates, it was found that 0.5 2.0% of the people surveyed had consumed more than 2 kg of analgesics, an amount sufficient to cause renal damage. I In a retrospective radiological study, of the 1011 intravenous urograms (IVU) done at the Nephrology Unit, General Hospital, Kuala Lumpur from 1968 to 1981,20 had RPN. 2 In a prospective study performed on patients admitted to the medical and renal wards of General Hospital, Kuala Lumpur from January 1982 to February 1983, 12 new cases of AN were documented." Since then a further 13 cases have been documented.