Background: Some kidney diseases are usually associated with changes in kidney size.Objective: To determine sonographically the normal limits and percentile curves of the kidney dimensions according to age, gender and somatometric parameters among school-age children.Methods: A prospective cross-sectional research design and convenience sampling method were utilized.Participants included 947 normal subjects (496 boys and 451 girls) aged 6-17 years old.The sonographic examination was performed on a Shenzhen DP-1100 machine with 3.5 MHz convex transducer.Longitudinal and transverse dimensions of the kidneys were obtained in coronal plane with the subject in the supine or left lateral decubitus position. Results:The means of right and left kidney lengths in mm were 79.6 ± 8.1 and 81.6 ± 8.3, respectively while those of the right and left kidney widths in mm were 35.03 ± 3.6 and 35.09 ± 3.6, respectively.Dimensions of the kidneys were not statistically different in boys and girls (p > 0.05).There was a statistically significant difference between right and left kidney length (p < 0.05).Height correlated best with both kidney lengths.Thus the normal limits, prediction models and percentile curves of kidney lengths were established with respect to height.Conclusion: Sonographic determination of pathologic changes in the size of the kidney necessitates knowing the normal ranges of its length especially with respect to height in school-age children.
Aim: To evaluate the chest radiographic changes in patients with sputum smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB)and patients with Human immunodeficiency virus / pulmonary tuberculosis eo-infection(HIV/PTB).Materials and Methods: The study was a case-control study conducted in the chest unit of University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu between 2000 to 2004. The cases were the HIV/PTB eo-infected persons while controls were patients with only PTB. HIV status and sputum smearmicroscopy results were obtained from the case files while their chest' radiographs (CXR),were reported by the radiologists.Results: A total of 479 cases were studied out ofwhich 296(61.8%) had only PTBwhile 183 (38.2%) had HIV/PTB eo-infection. There were significantly more cavitary lesions, less hilar shadows and more upperlobe infiltrates in PTBpatients compared to HIV/PTB eo-infected patients (P= 0.00). The CXR findings were however significantly more atypical in HIV/PTB eo-infected persons than in those. with only PTB (P = 0.00).Conclusions: CXRfindings in patients with HIV/PTB eo-infection are more atypical than those of patients with only PTB infection. A high index of suspicion is therefore required when an atypical CXRis observed in a HIV patient presenting with clinical signs and symptoms suggestive of TB.
The use of some ratios of cardiac, thoracic and aortic diameters as is noted in cardiothoracic ratio CTR,has proved to be of immense benefit in clinical assessment of normal size of heart, advanced clinical procedures, and in epidemiological studies. This research used the PA chest radiographs of 1,018 healthy male and female Nigerians within the southeast of ages 4 to 80 years to determine two ratios; Aorticothoracic Ratio (ATR) and Cardioaortic Ratio (CAR).These two ratios correlated significantly with CTR, heart, chest and aortic diameters. ATRgivesa ratio of the aortic diameter with thoracic diameter while CARis a ratio of the cardiac diameter with aortic diameter. From theresearch, any CTRless than 50%, ATRless than 20%, and CARless than 41% is an indication of normal heart and aortic arch diameter.
