Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: In kidney transplantation decision about the proper kidney donation is different between surgeons, but simple vasculature anatomy and a kidney without abnormalities are the most important reasons of choosing a kidney. Therefore    complete assessment of renal vessels of a live donor with noninvasive techniques is a necessity for nephrectomy. For delineation of the kidney vasculature anomalies and urinary system abnormalities, Multi-Detector CT seems to be excellent method for evaluation.
Methods: In this study 59 live donors were assessed with Multi-Detector CT Angiography. After injection of contrast media, we acquired images with 0.6 mm slice thickness. Processing and three dimentional reconstructions were done and the accessory arteries, early branching of main renal artery, the number of main renal vessels and the ureters were assessed. Findings were compared with the nephrectomy results.
Results: In Multi-Detector CT Angiography the prevalence of accessory renal artery was 3/4% with 98% accuracy, early branching of main renal artery was 8/4% with 100% accuracy. Multiplicity of renal veins was seen in 8/4% of donors with 98% accuracy. Duplicated ureter was not seen in any of the donors.

Conclusions: The accuracy of CT Angiography is 95% for depicting accessory renal artery and multiple renal artery and 100% for early branching. These results were comparable with findings in conventional angiography. Studies showed this method  more valuable than M.R. Angiography and digital subtraction angiography. It is less invasive and can be named as the gold standard method in the diagnosis of anomalies of vessels & collecting system in live donors. 

Background: A correlation between coronary artery disease (CAD) and atherosclerosis of peripheral arteries and the determination of noninvasive indexes for its existence and extent have been sought by many researchers. Some studies report that the intima-media thickness (IMT) of peripheral arteries could play this role. This study evaluated the correlation between the IMTs of common carotid and common femoral arteries and the degree of atherosclerosis in aortic arch and to evaluate the severity of CAD in candidates of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG).

Methods: In a cross-sectional analytic-descriptive study, The severity of CAD, the grade of atherosclerosis of the aortic arch, and the IMTs of the common carotid and common femoral arteries were determined.

Results: There was a significant weak positive correlation between the IMT of common carotid artery (ρ = 0.193, p = 0.039) and common femoral artery (ρ = 0.206, p = 0.028) with the number of involved carotid vessels the mean of these two parameters was not significantly different between the three CAD groups. There was not any significant relation between the IMTs of common carotid and common femoral arteries with the severity of atherosclerosis in the aortic arch too. There was not any significant relation between the presences of atherosclerotic plaque in the common carotid or the common femoral arteries with the severity of CAD. The severe atherosclerosis of the aortic arch was significantly higher in patients with three vessel disease.

Conclusion: According to our results, the IMTs of common carotid and/or common femoral arteries may increase with the severity of CAD however, these parameters are not a surrogate for predicting the CAD severity.