RARE Magnetic Resonance Urography in the Diagnosis of Upper Urinary Tract Abnormalities in Children

From September 1989 to November 1990, 55 consecutive children (35 boys, 20 girls) with suspected morphologic pathology of kidneys and urinary tract were prospectively examined by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). No other patient selection criteria were applied. In 25 of the cases suspicion had been aroused by an abnormal finding on an ultrasound screening examination. Twenty-two patients were examined due to a pathologic finding on ultrasound (US), which had been performed because of urinary tract infection, and/or due to other reasons like multiple malformations with expected kidney involvement (8 cases). Four children were evaluated twice — yielding a total of 59 examinations. These four repeated examinations were scheduled for control of therapy and are not included in this presentation. The patients were between 2 days and 13.2 years old, half of them were under 6 months old.