Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine, Vol 14, Issue 10 771-776, Copyright © 1995 by American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine
Usefulness of color Doppler flow imaging in differential diagnosis of multilocular cystic lesions of the kidney
T. Hirai, H. Ohishi, R. Yamada, Y. Imai, S. Hirohashi, R. Hirohashi, N. Honda and H. Uchida
Department of Oncoradiology, Nara Medical University, Japan.
Color Doppler flow imaging was carried out in 10 multilocular cystic
lesions of the kidney. These consisted of three renal cell carcinomas,
three hemorrhagic renal cysts, one benign multilocular cystic nephroma, two
infected renal cysts, and one benign multilocular renal cyst secondary to
von Hippel-Lindau disease. In the patients with renal cell carcinoma, color
signals were obtained at the septum and in the solid component within the
lesions. A pulsatile wave with a large maximum flow velocity and a high PI
value was obtained in two of them. In one of the patients with hemorrhagic
renal cysts, color signals were obtained at the region of the septum. In
the other benign lesions, however, color signals were obtained only at the
peripheral margin, and the flow waveform in these cases was identical to
the waveforms found in the interlobar arteries. This study suggested that
color display in the lesion well reflects its vascularity in patients with
multilocular cystic renal diseases and that measurement of the systolic
maximum flow velocity by fast Fourier transform analysis is useful for the
differential diagnosis of malignant versus benign lesions.
