Ultrasonography is often used as an initial imaging method in the examination of patients with renal disease. Using doppler ultrasonography it is possible to predict the vascular resistance of peripheral organs including kidney by calculating the
resistive index (RI) of the doppler wave form. Diabetes mellitus is a systemic metabolic diseases which frequently shows microvascular lesions and is predicted to have increased renal vascular resistance.
We measured doppler waves of renal arcuate artery in the 20 healthy volunteers and 25 diabetic patients using ultrasound of duplex image and calculated the RI of 2 groups to investigate clinical implications of the renal vascular resistance in
diabetic
patients.
@ES The results are as follows:
@EN 1) The RI of diabetic group (46.9±6.4%, Mean±S.D.) was significantly higher than that of control group (59.0±4.95, p<0.001).
2) The diabetic patients were divided into 2 groups; one is equal to or greater than 500 mg/24 hours and the other less than 500 mg/24 hyours according to the amount of 24 hours urinary protein excretion. The RI of high protein excretion group
(68.2±5.7%) was higher than that of low protein excretion group (62.8±6.2%, p<0.05).
3) In diabetic patients. The RI positivdely correlated with the 24 hours urinary protein excretion amount, the serum BUN and creatinine respectively (rd=0.6170, 0.6432*, 0.4682*, p<0.001,* p<0.01). However, a trend of negative correlation was
revealed
between the creatinine clearance and RI (r=-0.3769, p=0.0633).
These results suggest that the RI of the diabetics is much higher than of the healthy person, and it may be used as a non-invasive method drepresenting the grade of diabetic nephropathy. But further studies with more cases are needed to clarify
the
above findings.
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