More than eight years have elapsed since the first percutaneous renal biopsy was carried out (Iversen and Brun 6), and so far the results of about 1800 renal biopsy attempts have been published. Experience has now become so comprehensive that it is possible to form a broad impression of the nature and frequency of the complications in this procedure.
The aim of the present paper has been to examine the more than 500 renal biopsy attempts with any associated complications which have been carried out in Medical Department III of Kommunehospitalet throughout the period May, 1949, to January, 1958.
The literature to date contains a number of descriptions of complications in renal biopsy which are worth mentioning in detail.
Alwall1 reported in 1952 that in 1944 he had had 1 death after renal biopsy in a series of 13 biopsies. The death occurred in a patient who went into