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First description of polycystic kidney disease in a Portuguese journal

2008; Oxford University Press; Volume: 23; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/ndt/gfn107

1460-2385

Edgar Almeida, M. M. Prata,

Renal Diseases and Glomerulopathies

The first description of polycystic kidney disease (PKD) in a Portuguese medical journal occurred in 1918 when Dr Custodio Cabeca published a manuscript in Medicina Contemporânea, a medical journal founded in 1883 by Dr Miguel Bombarda (1851–1910) and Dr Sousa Martins (1843–1897), two important teachers at the Medical School in Lisbon [1]. A reprint of the manuscript dedicated to his colleague, Professor Daniel de Mattos (1845–1921), who was the teacher of Surgery in Medical Faculty of the University of Coimbra, was found by manual searching in the files of the library of this institution (Figure 1). In this manuscript Dr Cabeca reported his experience in treating eight patients with PKD (two of whom he nephrectomised) and reviewed the current knowledge on the pathophysiology of PKD. In his paper, Dr Cabeca started reviewing the pathophysiology of the disease and gave preference to the theory of ‘fetal papilitis’, or obstructive theory, that was proposed by Virchow (1821–1902), as opposed by the theories of neoplastic degeneration and the theory of congenital origin of the disease.