Renal Function Evaluated By Measurement Of The Apparent Diffusion Coefficient With Diffusion-Weighted MRI

PURPOSE: To explore the application of Diffusion-Weighted MR imaging(DWI) in renal disease and to determine the relationship between the apparent diffusion coefficient(ADC) and renal function. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 127 persons were examined with the routine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion-weighted imaging(DWI), some of whom were excluded because of no result or the quantity of he imaging was bad. 66 persons were included finally, in which there were 15 healthy, 32 patients with chronic kidney disease, 11 with hydronephrosis and 8 with high blood pressure. The motion probing gradients(b gradient) were applied along 6 different directions and four b-values (0, 50, 100 and 400 s/mm2) were selected for isotropic parameter in each direction. We got the ADC maps by syncretizing the diffusion-weighted maps of bO into the maps of b50,b100 and b400 respectively. The ADC values of the interesting areas were figured out on the ADC maps. At last, we use the SPSS12.0 software(t test and linera correlation and variance analysis) to estimate whether the difference between the ADC values of normal andcontrast groups has stastic significance.RESULTS: For all persons we studied, the renal ADC values of each b-value were different apparently from each other and also different apparently in each direction. The renal ADC values of patients with chronic kidney diseases were substantially decreased with the normal value(P<0.05), and there was a positive correlationship between the renal ADC values of CRF patients and the clear creatinine rate(Ccr) level of them(0.335