CASE REPORT article
Front. Med.
Sec. Nephrology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1660972
This article is part of the Research TopicCase Reports in Critical Care Nephrology 2025/2026View all articles
Case Report: Massive emphysematous pyelonephritis with short-term relapse
Provisionally accepted
- 1First Affiliated Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
- 2The Second Affiliated Hospital and Yuying Children's Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
- 3Jiangsu Cancer Hospital, Nanjing, China
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Background: Emphysematous pyelonephritis (EPN) is a rare but aggressive infectious disease that lacks specificity in its early stages and tends to progress to life-threatening septic shock in a short period of time. Its diagnosis is based on imaging tests, and treatment requires a combination of staging and risk factors. Case presentation: We report a case of emphysematous pyelonephritis in a patient with massive emphysema of the left kidney (the longest diameter up to 51 mm) on CT. After multidisciplinary consultation, the patient underwent CT-guided percutaneous drainage combined with targeted antibiotic therapy, and was discharged from the hospital with improvement of the condition. However, relapse of symptoms occurred after 1 day of discharge from the hospital, prompting readmission. After an additional 7-day course of antibiotic therapy, the patient recovered completely with no recurrence during 1-month follow-up. Conclusion: Staged diagnosis and individualized therapeutic measures are key to the prognosis of this disease. Despite advances in therapeutic techniques, the risk of relapse is still high, and a comprehensive assessment of infection control is recommended for discharge from the hospital, with intensive follow-up to improve the prognosis. Keywords: Emphysematous pyelonephritis; Relapse; Therapy; Prognosis
Keywords: Emphysematous pyelonephritis, relapse, therapy, prognosis, Infection
Received: 07 Jul 2025; Accepted: 30 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jiang, Meng, Chen, Yang, Yao, Zhong and Song. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ninghong Song, 17857540506@163.com
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