Background: Renal cortical echogenicity is routinely evaluated during ultrasonographic investigation of the\nkidneys. Both in dog and cat previous ex-vivo studies have revealed a poor correlation between renal echogenicity\nand corresponding lesions. The aim of this study was to establish the in-vivo relationship between renal cortical\nechogenicity and renal histopathology.\nResults: Thirty-eight dogs and fifteen cats euthanized for critical medical conditions were included in the study.\nUltrasonographic images of both kidneys were acquired ante mortem at standardized ultrasonographic settings.\nThe echogenicity was quantified by means of Mean Gray Value (MGV) of the renal cortex measured with ImageJ.\nA complete histopathological examination of both kidneys was performed. Five kidneys were excluded because\nhistopathology revealed neoplastic lesions. Only samples affected by tubular atrophy showed statistically different\nvalues in dog, and histopathology explained 13% of the total variance. MGV was not correlated neither to the\ndegeneration nor to the inflammation scores. However, significant differences were identified between mildly\nand severely degenerated samples. Overall, the classification efficiency of MGV to detect renal lesions was poor\nwith a sensitivity of 39% and a specificity of 86%.\nIn cats, samples affected by both tubular vacuolar degeneration and interstitial nephritis were statistically different\nand histopathology explained 44% of the total variance. A linear correlation was evident between degeneration\nand MGV, whereas no correlation with inflammation was found. Statistically significant differences were evident\nonly between normal and severely degenerated samples with a sensitivity of 54.17% and a specificity of 83.3%\nand MGV resulted scarce to discriminate renal lesions in this species.
Loading....