Summary
Morphometric analyses have been used to study the renal pelvises of four common rodents: laboratory rat (R), hamster (H), gerbil (M), sand rat (P). Measurements on photographs of serial sections were used to determine the 1) area of the outer kidney surface, 2) surface area of each kidney zone and hilum facing the pelvic space, 3) volume of the pelvic space, 4) volume of each kidney zone.
As a standard measure the total pelvic surface area (kidney zones plus hilum) of each species was expressed as a percent of its respective outer kidney surface area: R=25.0%, H=32.6%, M=48.7%, P=97.2%. The medullary tissue formed about 80% of the total pelvic surface area in each species while cortex and hilum formed the remaining 20%. The outer medulla had about twice as much surface area facing the pelvic urine as did the inner medulla. The amount of inner stripe of the outer medulla was greater than the outer stripe of the outer medulla as the following progression of ratios (mm2/mm2) shows: R=1.8, H=2.5, M=2.2, P=4.9.
When the volume of the pelvic space and each kidney zone of each species was compared to the total volume of the respective kidney as a standard measure, it was determined that 1) the pelvic space was small being less than 5% of the total kidney volume, 2) the cortex was the largest kidney zone in all species: R=69.6%, H=68.1%, M=69.9%, P=51.6%, 3) the outer medulla was intermediate: R=25.8%, H=27.4%, M=23.1%, P=33.8%, 4) the inner medulla formed the smallest tissue zone in all species but was noticeably larger in P (10.7%) in comparison to the values for R=2.1%, H=2.5% and M=5.2%.
The simultaneous increases (from R to H to M to P) in: a) relative inner medullary volume, b) relative pelvic surface area, c) maximum urine concentrating capacity (Schmidt-Nielsen and O'Dell 1961; Munkasci and Miklos 1977) may support earlier hypotheses which suggest that a back diffusion of pelvic urine solutes augments medullary interstitial tonicity and thus is an intergral part of the urine concentrating mechanism.
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Alexander von Humboldt Stipendiat
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Lacy, E.R. The mammalian renal pelvis: Physiological implications from morphometric analyses. Anat Embryol 160, 131–144 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00301856
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00301856