Virginia Research Day 2025

Medical Student Research Case Reports

13 Pelvic Kidney: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Macy Carleton; Oyindamola Adebayo; Josh VanGilder; Kaitlyn McGinley; Fernanda Robles; Atiya Qillawala; Aliza Ishrat; Samuel Fairman; Jonathan Millard Corresponding author: mcarleton@vcom.edu

Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine - Virginia Campus

to happen or is incomplete. Pelvic kidneys occur in about 1 in every 3000 births, but many remain undetected because they can be asymptomatic. Some clinical implications for this are increased risk of trauma, kidney stones, and urinary tract infections. In this report, we aim to present an interesting case of a pelvic kidney and the clinical relevance of this finding.

Ectopic Kidney is a congenital anomaly describing a kidney that is found in an abnormal location such as the abdomen, thorax, and upper pelvis. During a routine dissection of a 74-year-old male cadaver, the absence of the right kidney and right renal vessels were noted while dissecting the posterior abdominal wall. After further dissection into the pelvic inlet, an arterial variant was observed anteriorly at the aortic bifurcation. This vessel served as a guide for further

dissection of what was presumed to be the right kidney. Upon hemisection of the pelvis, the right kidney and vessels were discovered in the donor’s pelvis, suggesting the renal anomaly commonly known as pelvic kidney. In utero, the kidneys begin their development in the pelvis at the level of S1-S2 and undergo a relative migration to end up at the level of T12-L3 by the 9 th week of gestation. Ectopic kidneys occur when this migration process fails

105 2025 Research Recognition Day