Quantitation of renal function with 99Tcm-DMSA. A comparison with creatinine clearance in children with single kidney

To study the accuracy of renal function quantification with 99Tcm-DMSA we compared DMSA renal uptake and creatinine clearance in 16 cases of children with single kidney. The age of the patients ranged from two months to fourteen years. Creatinine clearance was normalized to 1.73 m2. DMSA uptake was measured 7 h after intravenous injection. Background subtraction was used and soft tissue attenuation was taken into account. The uptake was normalized in percentage of the injected activity. A significant correlation was found between creatinine clearance and DMSA uptake (rt = 0.866, p less than 0.01). Normal creatinine clearance range in children (80 to 120 ml min-1/1.73 m2) allowed determination of normal uptake range (36 to 60%). This study indicates that in case of asymmetrical renal impairment renal uptake will reflect split renal creatinine clearance. Since the former is much easier to measure, DMSA should play an important role in the evaluation of differential renal function.