Rupture of the kidney following external violence, spontaneous rupture of a pathologic kidney and rupture of the ureter after instrumentation have been frequently described in the literature, but there is a paucity of reports on postpyelographic rupture.
It is indeed amazing that with the morbidity produced in the early pyelographic days more cases were not reported. It is possible that the condition was undiagnosed, or perhaps there was a hesitancy on the part of the cystoscopist to report such unfortunate occurrences.
Hunner1 reported twenty-one ruptured ureters in 2,000 catheterizations. Henline2 described several cases of rupture of the ureter following instrumentation (ureteral catheter, bougie and other procedures). He brought out the interesting fact that perforation of the normal ureter is difficult; in all his cases the ureter was diseased or associated with a pathologic condition such as calculus.
Similar cases were reported by Sargent,3 Noble4 and Geisinger.