Three-dimensional reconstruction on PC-Windows platform for evaluation of living donor nephrectomy

Evaluation of renal vasculature was necessary for preoperative donor assessment in living donor kidney transplantation, and the ability to view the vascular imaging in three-dimensional (3D) space should be helpful undoubtedly. Considering the widespread use of personal computer (PC) systems, we aimed to find a handy way to display the anatomy of the renal arterial and venous systems of potential donors on PC-Windows platform. Ten living-related donors were included in this study. Serial computed tomography (CT) images were loaded into Amira 3.1 running on a PC with Windows XP. Following image crop, segmentation and 3D reconstruction, we got the 3D images and the video clips. According to the displays which were confirmed by latter intraoperative findings, eight donors had single renal vessels, one had a left accessory renal artery and one had a right accessory renal artery. This project offered a new approach to evaluate the renal vessel anatomy in living donor kidney transplantation, and it was favorable for accuracy and popularizing.