CT angiography versus conventional digital angiography in pre-operative assessment for Chinese living kidney donors

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: CT angiography has been in use for pre-operative evaluation of living kidney donors. Its correlation with intraoperative findings during the transplant operation remains unknown. METHODS: Between April 1997 and October 2008, 34 consecutive pairs of living kidney transplantation were carried out. Conventional digital angiogram was employed as the pre-operative assessment in the fi rst 19 pairs and CT angiography in the subsequent 15 pairs. The radiological reports and operative findings during kidney harvest were carefully examined and compared. RESULTS: Among the thirty-four cases in our cohort, we found eleven early branching renal arteries (32%) and six double renal arteries (17%). Venous and ureteric anomalies were rare with only one case (2.9%) of each respectively. CT angiography offered excellent and equal accuracy (Accuracy of 100%) when compared to conventional digital angiogram for renal arterial anatomy. CT angiography had superior performance than conventional angiogram in the domain of venous and collecting system anomalies (Accuracy of 100% vs. 94.7%). No contrast nephropathy or allergy was documented in our series. CONCLUSION: CT angiography had excellent correlation with surgical findings in the Chinese population. It is associated with minimal risk of contrast nephropathy as well as lower cost and hence should be adopted as the standard preoperative assessment in living kidney donors.