Renal Doppler ultrasonographic findings in earthquake victims with crush injury.
OBJECTIVE
In the Marmara earthquake, which occurred on August 17, 1999, 639 people had renal complications, and 477 needed hemodialysis treatment because of acute renal failure due to crush injury. Our objective was to use Doppler ultrasonography as a noninvasive procedure to provide renal hemodynamic information.


METHODS
We evaluated 9 patients with severe crush injury by using Doppler ultrasonography to measure renal resistive indexes within 16 to 32 hours after the earthquake and 6 weeks later. All patients had acute renal failure and underwent hemodialysis.


RESULTS
All measured initial resistive indexes were high (mean +/- SD, 0.83 +/- 0.08), and they were correlated with the number of hemodialysis sessions (r = 0.703; P = .034), the duration of hemodialysis treatment (r = 0.819; P = .007), and oligoanuria (r = 0.937; P < .0001). All patients recovered from the acute renal failure, and repeated Doppler ultrasonography showed significant decreases in resistive indexes (0.59 +/- 0.07; P < .01) and renal lengths (P < .05).


CONCLUSIONS
In crush injury, measurement of renal resistive indexes can be useful for the prognosis of recovery from acute renal failure.
Keven
K
K
Department of Nephrology, Ankara University Medical School, Ibni Sina Hospital, Turkey.
Ates
K
K
Yağmurlu
B
B
Nergizoğlu
G
G
Kutlay
S
S
Aras
S
S
Ozcan
H
H
Duman
N
N
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004190:Disasters; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007668:Kidney / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000293:injuries*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D018608:Ultrasonography, Doppler