Urinary system

The urinary tract are those anatomical structures through which the urine removed from the kidneys, cached and finally excreted.

The urinary tract includes:

• The paired renal pelvis ( renal pelvis )
• The paired Ureter ( ureter )
• The urinary bladder (vesica urinaria )
• The urethra ( urethra )

The urinary tract are muscular hollow organs with its own autonomous, partly arbitrarily affecting muscles. They are lined with a special epithelium, the urothelium, whose specialty it is to be able to stretch far and contract again, since the epithelial scales overlap.

Malformations, diseases

The most common problem that affects the urinary tract, is the acute cystitis. This favors those in women primarily by the much shorter compared to male urethra, the older man by outlet obstruction by prostate hyperplasia. The most feared complication of a bladder infection is pyelonephritis.

Consequence of an obstruction may be a consequence of urinary obstruction with the threat of overflow incontinence, a hydroureter and hydronephrosis. By chronic pressure increase in the hollow system can be completely destroyed the parenchyma of the upstream kidney (or the upstream kidneys).

Malformations of the urinary tract are more common in male infants diagnosed ( see, eg, hypospadias, epispadias ). Notable and relatively common malformations are otherwise a Harnleiterabgangstenose, numerical malformations such as a duplex ureter or ureter fissus and false mouths of a ureter into the bladder ( the ectopic ureter ).

Urinary stones can occur in all levels of the urinary tract and in the worst case, the loss of kidney function.

Other diseases, see under the individual organs.