Renal vein thrombosis in the post-partum period: a case report

Physiological hypercoagulability is a known condition in pregnancy designed to limit the risk of bleeding; it may exceptionally be complicated by thrombosis of the renal vein. To the best of our knowledge, this is the third case of renal venous infarction reported in the literature. We report the case of a 43-year-old Caucasian woman, a mother of three sons who presented with left flank pain and hematuria. The clinical investigations did not find any other cause for her thrombophilia. Clinical onset is not specific, so it is important to evoke the diagnosis in the context of pregnancy; computed tomography angiography is the investigation of choice to set the diagnosis. It is important to know that anticoagulation therapy must be initiated as soon as possible.