Munchausen Syndrome With Renal Stones

Abstract

HEMATURIA as a presenting symptom of Munchausen syndrome is unusual. Ireland et al, 1 in a review of all the reported cases of Munchausen syndrome, could only find four cases with hematuria. Several cases with hematuria have been reported since then, 2-5 but we have found no cases previously reported in which the patient presented an actual renal stone that was supposedly passed. We have treated such a patient who exhibited factitious urinary tract infection, hematuria, and a number of stones that she "passed." Report of a Case A 37-year-old white woman was referred to Walter Reed General Hospital (WRGH) from a nearby Army Hospital because of frequent passage of kidney stones. She gave a history of bilateral stag-horn calculi requiring nephrotomies when she was 16 and 17 years old. Since then, she allegedly passed one or two stones a year until she had a nephrectomy for a nonfunctioning right