A spontaneous tear in the wall of the renal artery in a young male during sexual intercourse.

What is it about?

Renal infarction (death of part of the kidney because the blood supply was cut off) is a known cause of flank pain, with wide range of underlying causes. Tearing within the renal artery or one of its branches is also a known cause of that, although less common than obliteration of the lumen of the artery due to other etiologies, like blood clot. When this happens without a known trigger, this is called "spontaneous renal artery dissection-SRAD". There has been an association between SRAD and strenous physical activity and excercise, but this case describes another trigger, sexual intercourse, that was not talked about specifically before, but could pontentially have the same mechanism as strenous excercise to cause SRAD, and might help us understand that entity better.

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Why is it important?

The entity of SRAD needs to be recognized early to be treated in timely fashion to avoid worsening kidney function. Knowing the associated factors and triggers can make the physician suspect the diagnosis early on to act appropriately and treat it depending on severity, presence or absence of complications, co-morbidities, and extend and site of the tear.