Upper urinary tract tumor: differential diagnosis by radiological images

To perform the adequate treatment of upper urinary tract lesions it is very important to have an exact diagnosis. When the suspicion of an upper tract urothelial tumor is established the initial evaluation is carried out by imaging diagnostic tests (intravenous urography, pyelography, and others). The association of radiological tests and urine cytologies allows us to get to a correct diagnosis in most cases. Upper urinary tract endoscopy solves some equivocal cases, but sometimes it is impossible to clarify the nature of the lesion in spite of a comprehensive diagnostic effort. Therapeutic decision should be individualized in these cases. The objective of this article is to describe the various features of upper tract urothelial tumors in a variety of available imaging tests, and to review all conditions that may have similar images, describing the characteristic radiological findings for each of them. We discuss about differential diagnosis and perform a critical evaluation of the diagnostic difficulties that occasionally present upper urinary tract diseases.