Detection of Renal Artery Stenosis by Duplex and Color Flow Doppler

This paper discusses the scan protocol of the abdominal arteries, describes the Doppler velocity variations observed in patients with renovascular disease, and correlates renal artery stenoses of > 60, 85, and 99% with arteriography. Ninety-two duplex deep Doppler scans with velocity and waveform analysis of 139 renal arteries were performed with a total of 77 patients studied. Deep Doppler studies of 72 renal arteries were correlated with 47 renal arteriograms. A renal artery stenosis, RAS, >60% was diagnosed by measuring velocities at the renal artery origins and observing distal renal artery waveform characteristics (normal, resistant, or delayed). The conclusion of this study is that deep Doppler of the renal arteries can play an important role in the line of testing procedures for diagnosing renovascular disease. The results for detecting a renal artery stenosis, RAS, greater than 60% against the gold standard of renal arteriography is 78% sensitivity, 83% specificity, 84% accuracy, and 61% prevalence. The negative predictive value is 74% and the positive predictive value is 95%.