title: Magnetic resonance imaging as the sole radiological assessment for living donor nephrectomy.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Planification of living donor nephrectomy requires exact knowledge of the renal vascular architecture because of the high prevalence of anatomical variants. After magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) challenged CT angiography for preoperative assessment over the last years, we revisit in this study the reliability of MRA as the sole preoperative assessment for living donor nephrectomy.
  
  
  METHODS
  We compared the radiological findings of MRA performed as the sole radiological procedure in 44 living kidney donors with perioperative anatomy to verify its sensitivity and to validate its systematic use in the preoperative assessment for living donor nephrectomy.
  
  
  RESULTS
  22 anatomical variants were found in 16 patients (16/44 = 36%). In 4 patients, a polar artery (3 superior, 1 inferior) was not seen by MRA and was detected during surgery (open nephrectomy). Supposing the anatomical variants it described on the opposite side of the nephrectomy are real, sensitivity of this technique in this series is 40/44 (91%) for arterial and 100% for venous imaging.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  MRA as the sole radiological preoperative assessment performed by a single radiologist with specific expertise and preoperatively reviewed with the harvesting surgeon has been validated as the sole radiological preoperative assessment for living donor nephrectomy at our institution.
authors.affiliation: Division of Urologic Surgery, Geneva University Hospital, Rue Micheli-du-Crest 24, CH-1211 Geneva 14, Switzerland. Nicolas.Fleury@hcuge.ch
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Fleury
authors.forename: Jean-Paul
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Vallée
authors.forename: Karine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hadaya
authors.forename: Léo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bühler
authors.forename: Pierre-Yves
authors.initials: PY
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Christophe E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Iselin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016030:Kidney Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D019520:Living Donors; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009392:Nephrectomy / Q000379:methods; D011871:Radiology / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods