Sonographic Assessment of Renal Size and its Correlation with Age and Gender in Apparently Healthy Adults in Benin City, Nigeria.

Abstract

Renal anthropometry is an important tool in the diagnosis and prognosis of renal diseases. Ultrasound presents a safe, readily available and repeatable method of assessment of renal dimensions. The aims of this study are to determine: 1) The accuracy and repeatability of ultrasound measured renal dimensions. 2) The relationship between renal dimensions with gender and age and thus help create a baseline data of our population. This is a prospective study of600 randomly selected apparently healthy adults was carried out in University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), Benin City, Nigeria. Analysis of the results showed that of the subjects, 309 were (51.5%) males and 291 (48.5%)females. In males, the mean kidney length was (IO.7cm ± 1.0 and 11.0cm ± 0.9), while in females, it was IO.4cm ± 0.9 and IO.8cm ± 0.9 for the right and left kidneys respectively. This study showed that males have significantly longer kidneys than females and the left kidney was significantly longer than the right kidney in both males and females. The kidney length was found to increase with age until about the 4th decade and decreased progressively from the 6th decade of life onwards.

Key words: Ultrasound, Renal Sizes, Nigerians, Age, Sex.