Evaluation of Hydronephrosis using Ultrasound and Renal Scintigraphy

Abstract

Ultrasound usually detects hydronephrosis in adult and children, while nuclear medicine techniques quantify relative renal function in addition to characterizing the uro-dynamic relevance of hydronephrosis. This prospective study was undertaken to examine the relationship between ultrasound morphological findings and relative renal function, quantified with dynamic 99mTechnetium mercaptotriacetylglycine imaging (99mTcMAG3). Fifty patients with hydronephrosis were enrolled in this study in the period from February 2015 to September 2015 in Mafraq Hospital- Abu Dhabi – UAE. The result of this study showed that the maximum uptake value occurs as the uptake time increases i.e. 11counts/min, the average of maximum uptake was 620.7±378 counts with a mean time scanning 13.8±9.4 min. the mean kidney size, kidney pelvic size and cortical thickness was 27.5±17.4, 0.5±0.2 and 6.7±5.5 respectively; these measured correlated well with the kidney function in the presence of hydronephrosis condition and body characteristics as well. In conclusion Kidney function can be estimated using kidney size where max uptake increase by 10.3 counts/cm2 of the kidney size and the uptake time increases by 0.1 min/cm2 of the kidney size.