Role of ultrasonographic chronic kidney disease score in the assessment of chronic kidney disease

Purpose Ultrasonography (US) is an inexpensive, noninvasive and easy imaging procedure to comment on the kidney disease. Data are limited about the relation between estimated glomerular filtration rate (e-GFR) and all 3 renal US parameters, including kidney length, parenchymal thickness and parenchymal echogenicity, in chronic kidney disease (CKD). In this study, we aimed to investigate the association between e-GFR and ultrasonographic CKD score calculated via these ultrasonographic parameters. Methods One hundred and twenty patients with stage 1–5 CKD were enrolled in this study. The glomerular filtration rate was estimated by the Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration equation. US was performed by the same radiologist who was blinded to patients’ histories and laboratory results. US parameters including kidney length, parenchymal thickness and parenchymal echogenicity were obtained from both kidneys. All 3 parameters were scored for each kidney, separately. The sum of the average scores of these parameters was used to calculate ultrasonographic CKD score. Results The mean age of patients was 63.34 ± 14.19 years. Mean kidney length, parenchymal thickness, ultrasonographic CKD score and median parenchymal echogenicity were found as 96.2 ± 12.3, 10.97 ± 2.59 mm, 6.28 ± 2.52 and 1.0 (0–3.5), respectively. e-GFR was positively correlated with kidney length ( r = 0.343, p