Radiological findings in renal tuberculosis: a report from northwest of Iran

Tuberculosis (TB) of the kidney and urinary tract has non-specific symptoms and is easily overlooked. We performed this retrospective study to analyze different findings on excretory urography (IVP) of patients with renal TB. The IVP slides of 25 patients (14 females/11 males, age range 12-63 years) with renal TB diagnosed over a 20-years period were studied for the presence of characteristic findings. They included: renal parenchymal mass, autonephrectomy, hydronephrosis, ureteral stricture and dilatation, and bladder involvement and fibrosis. In our study, the most common findings were ureteral stricture and dilation (13/25, 52%), bladder involvement 13/25 (52%), autonephrectomy 12/25 (48%) and renal parenchymal calcification 10/25 (40%). The most common combined pattern was ureteral stricture-dilation with contralateral autonephrectomy and bladder irregularities. We conclude that kidney TB remains undiagnosed until the advanced stages and awareness about the IVP imaging pattern could help in early diagnosis of this entity.