A study on ultrasonography in renal obstruction

Abstract

Doppler USG enables detection of subtle intrarenal blood flow changes associated with various pathophysiologic conditions. Platt et al. suggested that Doppler USG is promising for distinguishing obstructive from non-obstructive dilatation in a small group of patients. This prospective case control study was carried at a tertiary care centre. All patients presenting to the emergency medical division with symptoms of unilateral acute renal colic were part of this analysis. The kidney on the side of obstruction is treated as the case kidney and the contralateral normal (unobstructed) kidney served as the control. All patients were subjected to USG and Doppler USG using a 3.5 to 5 MHz transducer. The site of obstruction was proximal in 42 (42%) cases and distal in 58 (58%) cases. The mean RI of the obstructed kidneys with proximal obstruction was higher (0.72±0.01). However, the difference was statistically not significant. We also evaluated the mean RI in right and left kidney separately. Out of 100 patients 52 patients had obstruction of right kidney and 48 patients had obstruction of left kidney. Out of 52 obstructed right kidneys 23 (44.3%) patients had proximal obstruction and 29 (55.7%) patients had distal obstruction.