Does renal ultrasound require fasting?

This is an automatically translated article.

The article is professionally consulted by Master, Doctor Nguyen Quang Duc - Doctor of Nuclear Medicine - Department of Diagnostic Imaging and Nuclear Medicine - Vinmec Times City International General Hospital. The doctor has more than 12 years of experience in the field of Diagnostic Imaging.
Kidney is an important organ, holding many tasks in the body, so kidney disease is one of the dangerous diseases, greatly affecting health. In the paraclinical tests, renal ultrasound is a simple but effective method in detecting and diagnosing kidney diseases.

1. What is renal ultrasound technique?

Renal ultrasound is a separate part of ultrasound in general, using high-frequency sound waves to reconstruct the image of the kidney in black and white perspective, thereby diagnosing pathologies. kidney abnormalities.
Ultrasound is valuable in the early detection of diseases, contributing to the definitive diagnosis of the disease and helping the clinician to come up with a suitable treatment regimen for each patient.
Normal renal ultrasound results will describe the features of both kidneys such as: normal or abnormal kidney position, large or small size, characteristics of the renal parenchymal structures as well as the relationship with the kidney. neighboring organs.
The radiologist during renal ultrasound can use many different views to fully document kidney related problems. There are 3 different cutting planes namely longitudinal plane, transverse plane and oblique plane.
The right kidney is first examined by the anterolateral longitudinal plane, taking the liver as the negative window. Then perform a scan at the back noting the lower pole of the kidney. During a kidney ultrasound, the doctor may ask the patient to take deep breaths to separate the kidneys from the ribs and air in the intestinal tract. The left kidney requires more scanning from the back than the right kidney. The left superior renal pole requires scanning of the spleen and lumbosacral muscles, thus reducing image quality. The requirement for left kidney ultrasound is that the patient lies on his side, slightly turned inward to see the whole kidney.

2. What disease can be diagnosed with renal ultrasound?

Renal ultrasound is an easy, non-invasive and safe means for patients. Renal ultrasound can detect the following pathological conditions in the kidney:
Change in kidney size such as swelling or atrophy; Urinary tract stones ; Hydronephrosis; Polycystic kidney ; Renal abscess Acute and chronic glomerulonephritis; Nephrotic syndrome ; However, most of the above diseases, when at the early stage of disease onset, the abnormal image on renal ultrasound often does not have clear structural changes. Therefore, kidney ultrasound must be combined with other tests such as X-ray, CT kidney, urinalysis, kidney function test to lead to the most accurate diagnosis. Kidney ultrasound is also used to monitor the progression of the disease and the patient's response to treatment because ultrasound can be repeated many times without causing harm to the body.

3. In what case is an ultrasound of the kidney indicated?

Renal ultrasound is a part of general abdominal ultrasound, which is a routine test during a patient's routine physical examination. In addition, when the patient shows some of the following abnormal signs, the doctor may order an ultrasound of the kidneys to evaluate the disease:
Gross hematuria Difficulty urinating, complete urinary retention, painful urination or urinary frequency small. Abnormal changes of urine such as urine color change, urine cloudy like pus, sediment in the urine a lot or foamy ... Abdominal pain in the hip, back, position of the kidney. Abdominal trauma due to traffic accident or any accident. Sudden changes in blood pressure that are not explained by another medical condition. The kidney or kidney is not seen in the wrong position on X-ray or CT of the abdomen. History of kidney disease: renal failure, polycystic kidney. Monitor progress, kidney status.

4. Does renal ultrasound need to hold urine?

Renal ultrasound can be ordered in urgent cases, when the patient does not need to prepare anything before having a kidney ultrasound, but the results are sometimes inaccurate.
For the most accurate ultrasound results, to avoid illusions, patients need to prepare certain requirements before conducting a renal ultrasound: drink a lot of water, hold urine to keep the bladder enlarged, and should perform ultrasonography. fasting ultrasound (patients fast for 6-8 hours)
The most ideal conditions for kidney ultrasound in the morning, when the patient has fasted since the evening before, the old food has been completely digested, avoiding interference images during ultrasound.
When the patient drinks a lot of water and holds urine before the ultrasound, the bladder will expand to make an echo window to compare with abnormalities in the renal parenchyma if any (especially kidney stones). It is best to drink 3 glasses of 230ml water and hold urine for at least 1 hour before the ultrasound.
Hopefully, through the information of the above article, readers can understand how the renal ultrasound process takes place and whether the renal ultrasound needs to hold urine or not?
Currently, Vinmec International General Hospital has been using modern generations of color ultrasound machines. One of them is GE Healthcarecar's Logig E9 ultrasound machine with full options, HD resolution probes for clear images, accurate assessment of lesions. In addition, a team of experienced doctors and nurses will greatly assist in diagnosing and early detection of abnormal signs of the kidney as well as of many other organs in the body in order to come up with a method. timely treatment.

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