Value of MR urography in the diagnosis of urologic disease

Objective:To investigate clinical application of MR urography in the diagnosis of urologic disease. Methods: Sixty patients with urologic diseases were studied,14 had urinary tract malformation,18 urinary tract calculus,10 urinary tract tumor,8 inflammatory diseases and 10 others.MRI and MRU were performed in all patients.MRU was performed with heavy T 2 weighted fast spin echo pulse sequence. Postprocedure processing was performed with a maximum intersity projection (MIP) algorithm.Results:58 cases showed urinary tract obstruction on MRU,which demonstrated clearly the site and severity of the obstruction,especially in those cases not revealed by IVU. MRU can demonstrate the level of urinary obstruction in 100% of the cases,and evaluate correctly the nature of the disease in 80% of the cases if combined with ordinary MRI.Conclusion:MR urography is a facile and noninvasive technique without using contrast material. This technique is useful in diagnosis of many urologic diseases and especially useful in diagnosis of urinary tract obstruction.