Roentgenograpric appearance of bone and soft tissue changes in chronic hemodialysis patients.

Renal osteodystrophy is the common problem in chronic dialysis patients. We checked the roentgenograms of fifty-seven chronic hemodialysis patients, and the degree of bone atrophy was analysed using the microdensitometry method. The average duration of the dialysis was 130 months. The average age was fifty-three. In plain reontgenograms, findings due to secondary hyperparathyroidism were much more common than findings due to osteomalacia. In dialysis patients, bone atrophy was more severe than that in the same aged control group. The M. C. I. in patients whose dialysis period was longer than ten years tended to be lower than that less than ten years.