Abstract
Renal length and volume are important parameters in the clinical assessment of patients with diabetes mellitus, kidney transplants, or renal artery stenosis. Kidney size is used in primary diagnostics to differentiate between acute (rather swollen kidneys) and chronic (rather small kidney) pathophysiology. Total kidney volume is also an established biomarker in studies for the treatment of autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD). There are several factors influencing kidney size, and there is still a debate on the value of the measured kidney size in terms of renal function or cardiovascular risk. The renal volume is most often calculated by measuring the three axes of the kidney, on the assumption that the organ resembles an ellipsoid. By default, the longitudinal and transverse diameters of the kidney are measured. In animal models renal length and volume1 are also important parameters in the assessment of organ rejection after transplantation and in determination of kidney failure due to renal artery stenosis, recurrent urinary tract infections, or diabetes mellitus. In general total kidney volume (TKV) is a valuable parameter for predicting prognosis and monitoring disease progression in animal models of human diseases like polycystic kidney disease (PKD) or acute kidney injury (AKI) and chronic kidney disease (CKD).This chapter is based upon work from the COST Action PARENCHIMA, a community-driven network funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) program of the European Union, which aims to improve the reproducibility and standardization of renal MRI biomarkers. This analysis protocol is complemented by two separate chapters describing the basic concept and experimental procedure.
Highlights
Kidney size is used in primary diagnostics to differentiate between acute and chronic pathophysiologies
They still offer best image quality with respect to reproducibility and inter slice variability. Such sequences can be modified to perform multiecho imaging, resulting in a set of images with different weighting that even can be used to calculate T2 maps. In this tutorial we demonstrate the applicability of a 2D T2 weighted multi echo Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for accurate determination of kidney volume and compare different standardized total kidney volume (TKV) measurement techniques using MRI scanners developed for clinical routine imaging or dedicated to small animal imaging
Partial volume effects, which occur if voxels contain both kidney and surrounding tissue, could lead to overestimation of the kidney volume, if such voxels are included within the boundaries of the kidney
Summary
Kidney size is used in primary diagnostics to differentiate between acute (rather swollen kidneys) and chronic (rather small kidney) pathophysiologies. They still offer best image quality with respect to reproducibility and inter slice variability Such sequences can be modified to perform multiecho imaging, resulting in a set of images with different weighting that even can be used to calculate T2 maps. In this tutorial we demonstrate the applicability of a 2D T2 weighted multi echo MRI for accurate determination of kidney volume and compare different standardized TKV measurement techniques using MRI scanners developed for clinical routine imaging or dedicated to (preclinical) small animal imaging.
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