USEFULNESS OF COLOR DOPPLER FLOW IMAGING IN DIFFERENTIAL-DIAGNOSIS OFMULTILOCULAR CYSTIC LESIONS OF THE KIDNEY

Color Doppler flow imaging was carried out in 10 multilocular cystic l esions of the kidney. These consisted of three renal cell carcinomas, Three hemorrhagic renal cysts, one benign multilocular cystic nephroma , two infected renal cysts, and one benign multilocular renal cyst sec ondary to von Hippel-Lindau disease. In the patients with renal cell c arcinoma, color signals were obtained at the septum and in the solid c omponent within the lesions. A pulsatile wave with a large maximum flo w velocity and a high PI value was obtained in two of them. In one of the patients with hemorrhagic renal cysts, color signals were obtained at the region of the septum. In the other benign lesions, however, co lor signals were obtained only at the peripheral margin, and the flow waveform in these cases was identical to the waveforms found in the in terlobar arteries. This study suggested that color display in the lesi on well reflects its vascularity in patients with multilocular cystic renal diseases and that measurement of the systolic maximum flow veloc ity by fast Fourier transform analysis is useful for the differential diagnosis of malignant versus benign lesions.