Distal Vessel Atherosclerosis as a Cause for False-Positive Renal Scintigraphy
While captopril-enhanced renal scintigraphy is acknowledged to be a useful screening technique to detect clinically silent obstructive lesions of the main renal arteries, the presence of significant atherosclerosis of distal, smaller renal vessels as a cause of positive scintigraphy scans has not be...
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Published in | Renal failure Vol. 18; no. 6; pp. 923 - 930 |
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Main Authors | , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Colchester
Informa UK Ltd
1996
Taylor & Francis |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | While captopril-enhanced renal scintigraphy is acknowledged to be a useful screening technique to detect clinically silent obstructive lesions of the main renal arteries, the presence of significant atherosclerosis of distal, smaller renal vessels as a cause of positive scintigraphy scans has not been reported extensively. In a retrospective 2-year analysis of 31 consecutive captopril-enhanced renal scintigrams, we found a total of 13 studies in 11 patients that were classified as "positive "for renal artery stenosis. Of these 11 patients with positive scintigraphic studies, 4 patients underwent 5 renal arteriography procedures; only 1 of these renal arteriograms showed significant stenosis of the main renal artery. In the other 4 cases, an angiographic pattern of diffuse intrarenal distal arterial disease correlated with scintigram lateralization. Angiography was also performed in 4 patients with negative captopril renal scintiscans. In each of these cases the arteriogram was also negative for significant renal artery stenosis, and only 1 patient had diffuse bilateral intrarenal arterial disease. We conclude that distal renal arterial narrowing should be considered in the differential diagnosis of lateralized renal scintigrams. A negative renal scintigraphic study may be more reliable for excluding significant main renal artery obstructive disease. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0886-022X 1525-6049 |
DOI: | 10.3109/08860229609047718 |