Acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) elastography in the evaluation of renal parenchymal stiffness in patients with ureteropelvic junction obstruction

Abstract

ARFI as a noninvasive, radiation-free procedure for evaluating parenchymal stiffness may prove useful in the diagnostic work-up and follow-up of children with UPJO-induced renal disease.

Point shear wave elastography (pSWE) using Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI) imaging: a feasibility study and norm values for renal parenchymal stiffness in healthy children and adolescents

“…However, it has to be mentioned, that these results are referring to a small study population of 15 patients with ureteropelvic junction obstruction (UPJO) and 16 healthy children. Furthermore, no correlation of SWS value and age could be found in this study [20]. In contrast, Lee et al reported a positive correlation between age and SWS value, measuring kidneys of 202 healthy children.…”

“…A positive correlation between age and SWS value, as well as a positive correlation between weight and SWS value and a positive correlation between body height and SWS value, was found for VTQ-6C1-ventrolateral and VTIQ-9L4-dorsal. This is in concordance with two studies, which investigated a possible correlation between SWS values and age in children [20,21]. Only one study was published analyzing correlations between SWS values and sex, height, weight, BMI and kidney length.…”

“…While pSWE has been increasingly recognized as a potential tool for measuring renal parenchymal stiffness in adult kidney patients, only a very few studies have evaluated the applicability and feasibility of pSWE in children with and without kidney disease [17][18][19][20][21]. In contrast to previous studies, where only VTQ had been used, this is the first study to provide also data on the use of VTIQ in healthy children.…”

“…A 1-4.5 MHz convex probe had been used with the patient lying in lateral decubitus [19]. The other studies on pSWE of healthy kidneys in children are not fully comparable because of study populations of less than 20 healthy children or a limited age range [17][18][19][20]. For example, Sohn et al enrolled 19 healthy children under the age of 24 months and reported a mean SWS of 1.75 m/s [18].…”

“…Recently, a limited number of studies applied pSWE in the evaluation of renal parenchymal stiffness in children with vesicoureteral reflux (VUR) [17][18][19], ureteropelvic junction obstruction [20] and in healthy children [21].…”