Relationship of renal morphology on 3-dimensional ultrasonography with renal pathologic findings and outcome in biopsy-proven nephropathy

Abstract

Abstract. Kidney morphology has been used to estimate renal functions. The present study investigated the usefulness of kidney length and renal parenchymal volume (RPV) measured using three-dimensional ultrasonography (3-D USG) in estimating renal pathological findings, and the outcome in patients with nephropathy who underwent renal biopsy. In this study, 94 adult patients who had native kidney biopsy with 3-D USG results were included. The mean kidney length and RPV were independent factors of, and positively correlated to the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). The mean kidney length and RPV had inverse associations with the percentage of global glomerulosclerosis. Higher mean RPV, other than longer kidney length, indicated a lower prevalence of tubular atrophy. During 63.3±19.3 months of follow-up, a mean RPV of <125 ml increased the risk of composite outcome by 4.287 fold (95% confidence interval, 1.133-16.227) as compared with a mean RPV of ≥125 ml (P= 0.032). In conclusion, kidney size was inversely associated with certain nephronal damage and positively associated with eGFR in nephropathy. Furthermore, smaller RPVs predicted worse outcomes of nephropathy.

Diagnostic Value Of Doppler Ultrasound In Early Chronic Kidney Disease

“…In this study, renal length (OR: -1.62 [-2.06, -1.19]) and renal 3D volume (OR: -0.05 [-0.07, -0.03]) showed signi cant differences in severe renal injure, even after adjusting for confounding variables such as gender, age and BMI. This result indicated that renal volume and renal length were effective parameters for the assessment of severe renal injure and showed a negative correlation, which was consistent with the study by Xu et al in 2018 ( 32 Xu et al, 2018). However, in early and moderate pathological injure, the results showed that the pathological structural injure had not caused signi cant morphological changes, and the individual differences between kidneys were relatively large.…”

How reliable is renal ultrasound to measure renal length and volume in patients with chronic kidney disease compared with magnetic resonance imaging?

“…Three-dimensional US is a promising technique for renal volume assessment (31). Recent data suggest that morphological kidney parameters provided by 3D US might be more accurate than 2D US (32). However, this technique is not yet established in routine clinical practice.…”