Renal colic due to fatty tissue obstruction of the ureter following selective arterial embolisation of a 10 cm angiomyolipoma

Abstract

A 47-year-old man was admitted for preventive embolisation of a 10 cm angiomyolipoma (AML) of the right kidney. Three weeks after embolisation, he was readmitted at the emergency unit for a right renal colic. The CT scan confirmed the obstruction of the right ureter due to the presence of fatty tissue into the lumen. Understanding fatty tissue migration into the collecting system is not simple. We hypothesised that the use of alcohol during the embolisation procedure could have led to focal necrosis of the collecting system, thus enabling migration of fatty tissue into the renal calyces.