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Kidney development September 13, 2007

Did you know that our kidneys produce 180 liters of ultrafiltrate per day?! Ultrafiltrate is the primary urine produced by the kidneys, most of which is reabsorbed, so that the total daily yield of urine is about 1,5 liters depending on how much liquid one drinks a day. Kidneys are so important, that life would be unimaginable without them. They get rid of excess water, waste products, produce the hormone (eritropoetin or EPO) that stimulates the bone marrow to make more red blood cells, and control the ion levels in our blood, which is so important for muscle contraction including the heart. Development of the urinary tract is very complex, and can go astray on a number of occasions. Here is one such example, when the kidneys remain attached to one another (so called horseshoe kidney), thus compromising the free flow of urine out of the collecting system, which can lead to infections and even to kidney failure. Though it might seem scary, sometimes it causes no symptoms at all, and the diagnoses is made by accident. This is how horseshoe kidney looks like on a gamma scan (nuclear medicine).

And this is how it looks like on a CT scan fron a radiologist point of view.