TITLE:
Detectability of Renal Arteries in Living Renal Donors Using Multi-Detector CT: Comparison among Axial and Three-Dimensional Reconstruction Images
AUTHORS:
Mari Kohno, Tsuyoshi Tajima, Kazuya Omoto, Shuji Sakai
KEYWORDS:
Renal Transplantation; Laparoscopic Nephrectomy; MDCT; Renal Arteries; The ROC Analyses
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Medical Imaging,
Vol.3 No.3,
September
23,
2013
ABSTRACT: Purpose: The purpose was to compare the effectiveness of MDCT reconstruction
methods that improve detectability for detecting the renal arteries in patients
undergoing laparoscopic nephrectomy irrespective of the ability of the radiologist. Methods: 128 patients with left
nephrectomy and either one or multiple renal arteries were enrolled. Radiologists
with varying levels of expertise (5 board-certified and 3 non-certified)
interpreted all MDCT images, including axial, VR and MIP images, independently
and determined the numbers of renal arteries. The interpretation times, sensitivity,
specificity and diagnostic accuracy rates were analyzed. A receiver operating
characteristic analysis was used to compare the results from the various
reconstruction methods. Results: At
surgery, there were 156 arteries: 101 donors had one renal artery and 27 had
multiple arteries. The interpretation time for board-certified radiologists was
shorter than that for non-certified radiologists, and the interpretation time
using MIP images was significantly shorter than that of using the other
reconstruction methods. The sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic accuracy on
axial images were significantly higher than those on other images. The
average Az value for detection of the numbers of renal arteries using axial
images was higher than that of using other images. Conclusion: MDCT is helpful in reviewing the numbers of donated
renal arteries for radiologists with different levels of expertise, and
different types of reconstructions.