Anatomy & Physiology: Current Research
Open Access

Abstract

Relation between Renal Length and Renal Volume with Patient’s BMI: A Critical Appraisal

Lipika Paul, Shweta Talhar, Bharat Sontakke, Moreshwar Shende and Jwalant Waghmare

In urological and nephrological practices, evaluation of kidney size imparts a valuable diagnostic parameter. Age, gender, body mass index, pregnancy and co-morbid conditions such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension are supposed to affect the renal size. Measurements of renal dimensions can be carried out by using different modern techniques like ultrasonography, CT scan and MRI. On the other hand body mass index (BMI) provides information to know the patient?s obesity which is based on patient?s height and weight. Information available from one particular region may not satisfy the other region as renal parameters varies with different ethnic group and body size. In this prospective, reviewing literature of different studies evaluated so far to predict the relationship between renal dimensions and BMI is carried out. These studies revealed that most of renal parameters were positively correlated with body size of an individual, therefore they can be used to estimate the size and volume of kidney. Moreover, the standard normal reference ranges for renal volume and size can serve as gold standard and acts as an adjunct to judge the atrophic or hypertrophic condition of kidney. Hence, establishing relationship between measured renal dimensions and BMI will serve as a useful guideline for detection of diseased condition of kidney. This paper sets out to present published data on researches that has fortified knowledge and understanding of correlation between different renal parameters and BMI, keeping in mind different demographic background. Thus here we are putting a comprehensive account of the studies carried out globally to establish the inter-relationship between renal dimensions with BMI which definitely helps the nephrologists in early diagnosing the renal diseases.