Increased renal perfusion and kidney size in convalescent burn patients.

Renal blood flow was elevated in convalescent burn patients shortly before discharge (992 +/- 112 mL/min/sq m in burn patients vs 551 +/- 37 mL/min/sq m in normal subjects; mean +/- SE). Autopsy studies demonstrated that renal enlargement was a constant feature of patients after a prolonged hospital course; the kidneys of 28 patients who died after 60 days of hospitalization weighed 241 +/- 10 g vs 153 +/- 8 g in control subjects. The increase in renal weight was primarily related to cellular hypertrophy and hyperplasia. These physiological and morphological findings in thermally injured patients may be a form of renal work hypertrophy following increased protein catabolism accompanying severe injury.