Keywords:
Kidney, Abdomen, Ultrasound, Elastography, Diagnostic procedure, Pathology, Tissue characterisation
Authors:
G. Cardenas, D. I. Herquinigo, P. Romanque, A. Inostroza, L. Toro, I. Gacitua, M. Alvo, L. Michea, P. Segura; Santiago/CL
DOI:
10.26044/ecr2019/C-3712
Results
Nineteen patients were recruited,
with an average age of 40.4 ±13.4 years,
12 of which were male,
corresponding to 63.2% of the sample.
The average length of the right kidney in its longitudinal,
transverse and anterior-posterior diameters were 108 x 55 x 52 mm,
while the left kidney´s were 106 x 50 x 53 in the same axes.
The average cortical thickness of the right kidney was 16 mm and the left kidney 17 mm.
The distance to the skin of the right kidney was 43 mm while the left kidney was 41 mm.
The avereage values of the morphological measurements are summarized in Table 1.
The average serum creatinine level of the patients was 1.4 mg/dL (±0.5 SD).
The results of the renal biopsy were,
in order of prevalence: IgA nephropathy (42.1%),
lupus nephropathy (26.3%),
membranous glomerulonephritis (9.5%),
vasculitis (5.3%), focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (5.3%),
crescentic glomerulonephritis (5.3%) and diabetic nephropathy (5.3%) (Fig. 4).
Pathology results demonstrated evidence of fibrosis in 89.4% of the patients (all with a mild degree of <30%),
the presence of glomerular sclerosis in 41.1% and vascular sclerosis in 94.7% of biopsies.
The mean of the ARFI medians for the right kidney was 3.86 kPa (3.33-8.84) with an average of 6.84 kPa ±5.92 DS,
and for the left kidney was 3.71 kPa (3.47 ±8.81) with an average of 6.84 ±5.67 DS.
The average of the median calculated for both kidneys was 3.8 kPa (3.4-7.5) with an average of 6.82 ±5.64,
without significant difference between both kidneys (Table 2).
There was no significant correlation between the value of ARFI measured in each kidney with mild renal fibrosis (R2 = 0.04,
p = 0.39) (Fig. 5 and Fig. 6),
glomerulosclerosis (R2 = 0.06,
p = 0.3) (Fig. 7 and Fig. 8) or with the creatinine value (R2 <0.01,
p = 0.89) (Fig. 9 and Fig. 10).