Roentgenologic estimation of kidney size in adult Nigerians

Kidney length, width, renal cortical thickness and area were measured on excretory urograms of 100 (50 male and 50 female) adult Nigerians who had no apparent clinical, pathological or radiological evidence of renal disease. There is no significant difference in renal size between males and females and the left kidney in each sex was significantly longer than the right, the left kidney being 12.4 cm and the right 12.0 cm in length. Although the renal length in Nigerians is shorter than those of Europeans, the renal surface area per body surface area is the same in both groups. There is a poor correlation between kidney length and the vertebral span L1 - L4(r = 0.4).