[The angiography of kidney transplant arteries using carbon dioxide]

After renal transplantation hypertension occurs in 60-80% of patients, in 3-23% of them due to renal artery stenosis in the transplanted kidney. Angiographic assessment of the severity of the stenosis would best be done with a non-nephrotoxic contrast medium. We investigated the use of carbon dioxide, a bubble-forming contrast medium excreted via the lung, for its suitability in the angiography of the arterial system in the renal transplant.

In an uncontrolled series of observations on six patients with renal transplants and hypertension who were being treated with three or four antihypertensive drugs, the transplant's arteries were demonstrated with carbon dioxide, injected by Seldinger technique into the ipsilateral femoral artery, and the results recorded by subtraction angiography.

The angiograms demonstrated postoperative kinked renal artery, a plaque in the external iliac artery, and a sharply angled origin of the external iliac artery in one case each, and three normal cases.

Carbon dioxide is a suitable medium for demonstrating renal arteries in a transplanted kidney and is preferable to conventional contrast media for the angiographic diagnosis of possible renal artery stenosis.