The diagnostic efficacy of diffusion tensor imaging in children with chronic kidney disease: correlation with histopathology and serum biomarkers

Children with chronic kidney disease (CKD) usually present with disease impact on growth besides cardiovascular problems that not only impact the patient's health during childhood but also affect their adult life. We aimed to identify the diagnostic role of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in CKD in pediatric using its metrics: apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and fraction anisotropy (FA). This prospective study was performed on thirty-five CKD patients (16 girls, 19 boys; mean age 12.3 ± 2.6 years) and 19 sex- and age-matched controls. Both groups underwent renal DTI and renal function tests. Based on renal biopsy, patients with CKD were further categorized into sclerotic CKD (n = 25) and non-sclerotic CKD (n = 10). Mean FA renal medulla/cortex in CKD (0.18 ± 0.18 and 0.20 ± 0.17) was lower significantly (p = 0.001) than volunteers' (0.31 ± 0.19, 0.27 ± 0.18). The cutoff FA of renal medulla/cortex used for CKD diagnosis was 0.22 and 0.23 with AUC of 0.828, 0.838 and accuracy of 80.8