Renal duplication with associated complications in adults: CT findings in 26 cases

To review the computed tomography (CT) findings in 26 adult patients with complicated renal duplication, and to assess whether the complications were anomaly-related or superimposed by acquired disease.

Fifteen women and 11 men, aged 17-83 years took part in the study. All CT studies were reviewed to define the moieties affected.

The duplication was unilateral in 18 cases and bilateral in six, one patient had a single left kidney and the remaining one a horseshoe kidney. In 14 patients the pathology was related only to the anomaly. Upper pole abnormalities were seen in 13 patients (seven related to the anomaly) and lower pole abnormalities in five (all related to duplication). Both systems were affected in eight cases, six of them by pathological processes unrelated to duplication. Hydronephrosis of the affected collecting system was the most common imaging finding.

Computed tomography is often used to evaluate abdominal conditions in adults and may therefore be the first imaging modality to reveal a duplex kidney complicated by a pathological process. Involvement of only one moiety was frequently related to the duplication, with a predilection for the upper moiety, while involvement of both systems was used unrelated to the duplication. Zissin, R. (2001). Clinical Radiology, 56, 58-63.