Diagnostic significance of excretory urography and ultrasonography in renal diseases.

A comparative study of intravenous urography (IVU) and ultrasonography (USG) was performed in 100 patients of all age groups, having symptoms and signs of various renal diseases. Sonography was found to be 100% sensitive and diagnostic in approximately 74% of renal pathologies included in this study, namely calculous disease (excluding midureteric calculi), obstructive lesions of pelvicalyceal system (PCS), cystic diseases, gross congenital lesions, traumatic lesions and neoplasms. It also provided information about the complications of long standing obstruction to PCS such as non-functional and atrophied kidneys, infection, etc. IVU proved better in midureteric calculi (100%), 88.2% of all congenital lesions including the major as well as minor variations. Both modalities proved to be of poor help in diffuse parenchymal diseases (IVU-40% and USG-50%) and renal tuberculosis (IVU-18.2% and USG-45.5%). Sonography was able to delineate the cause of obstruction to PCS in only 72.3% of cases as compared to 88% by IVU.