1978 Volume 81 Issue 9 Pages 907-917
There are several papers reporting a transient proteinuria in some of patients who underwent tonsillectomy. In order to clarify the mechanism of the postoperative transient proteinuria we have investigated the quantitative and qualitative changes of urinary proteins befor and after operation. The protein contents of urine were measured by the microfilter method after Kihara et al., and the quality of the urine proteins was determined by electrophoresis and immunoelectrophoresis.
The results are as follows.
1) On the first postoperative day the urinary proteins increased compared with the preoperative ones, but they decreased already in the second postoperative day.
2) These postoperative increases of the urinary proteins were transient and reversible, rising to the maximum at one hour postoperatively.
3) According to the qualitative examination the increasing proteins in the postoperative urine were albumin, transferrin and other proteins of the high molecular weight which are supposed to be the so-called glomerular proteinuria. On the other hand the tubular proteinuria with the low molecular weight was not found.
4) The transient postoperative changes of the renal function were not observed during 2 hours ofter operation.
5) In the cases of renal diseases the proteins after the tonsillar provocation test increased to the maximum within the first hour and decreased to the pre-test level in the following 2 hours.
6) We postulated that the transient proteinuria after tonsillectony or the provocation test is understood to appeare as a part of the so-called irritation syndrome.
