Assessment of Incidentally Detected Simple Renal Cyst in Pediatric Patient Based on the Modified Bosniak Classification —Incidentally Detected Simple Renal Cyst in Pediatric

Renal cysts in pediatric patients are uncommon lesion. A modified Bosniak classification system for renal cysts based on US has been developed to evaluate pediatric renal cysts to identify the simple cyst or cystic tumour. Nevertheless, it is not widely used. In this retrospective study, all incidentally detected renal cysts by ultrasound performed in children and the reproducibility of modified Bosniak classification to guide the radiological and clinical follow up.

Impact of contrast-enhanced ultrasound in patients with renal function impairment

AIMTo investigate the role of contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in evaluating patients with renal function impairment (RFI) showing: (1) acute renal failure (ARF) of suspicious vascular origin; or (2) suspicious renal lesions.METHODSWe retrospectively evaluated patients addressed to CEUS over an eight years period to rule-out vascular causes of ARF (first group of 50 subjects) or assess previously found suspicious renal lesions (second group of 41 subjects with acute or chronic RFI). After preliminary grey-scale and color Doppler investigation, each kidney was investigated individually with CEUS, using 1.2-2.4 mL of a sulfur hexafluoride-filled microbubble contrast agent. Image analysis was performed in consensus by two readers who reviewed digital clips of CEUS. We calculated the detection rate of vascular abnormalities in the first group and performed descriptive statistics of imaging findings for the second group.RESULTSIn the first group, CEUS detected renal infarction or cortical ischemia in 18/50 patients (36%; 95%CI: 23.3-50.9) and 1/50 patients (2%; 95%CI: 0.1-12), respectively. The detection rate of infarction was significantly higher (P = 0.0002; McNemar test) compared to color Doppler ultrasonography (10%). No vascular causes of ARF were identified in the remaining 31/50 patients (62%). In the second group, CEUS detected 41 lesions on 39 patients, allowing differentiation between solid lesions (21/41; 51.2%) vs complex cysts (20/41; 48.8%), and properly addressing 15/39 patients to intervention when feasible based on clinical conditions (surgery and cryoablation in 13 and 2 cases, respectively). Cysts were categorized Bosniak II, IIF, III and IV in 8, 5, 4 and 3 cases, respectively. In the remaining two patients, CEUS found 1 pseudolesion and 1 subcapsular hematoma.CONCLUSIONCEUS showed high detection rate of renal perfusion abnormalities in patients with ARF, influencing the management of patients with acute or chronic RFI and renal masses throughout their proper characterization.