Surgical treatment of ectopic ureteroceles and the role of heminephrectomy with subtotal ureterectomy.

We evaluated 16 patients, 2 weeks to 8 years of age (median: 18 months), operated on for ectopic ureterocele. Five patients, in whom the upper kidney, drained by the ureter with the ureterocele, was viable, were submitted to excision of the ureterocele with reimplantation of the double ureter (n = 4) or high ureteroureterostomy (n = 1). A 2-week-old baby with a non-functioning kidney was treated by nephroureterectomy. The remaining 10 children with a non-functioning upper part of a duplex kidney were submitted to heminephrectomy with subtotal ureterectomy. In this group of patients no problems arose from the retained ureteral stump or the decompressed ureterocele, and vesicoureteral reflux accompanying the ureterocele resolved postoperatively in 6 of 10 ureters.