Usefulness of Tc-DMSA Renal Cortex Scan to Detect Renal Damage in Spinal Cord Injury Patients

Received 10/15/2007; revised 10/29/2007; accepted 10/30/2007. For correspondence and reprints contact: Jia-Huei Lin, M.D., Department of Nuclear Medicine, Kuang Tien General Hospital. 117 Sha-Tien Road, Sha-Lu, Taichung 43303, Taiwan, ROC. Tel: (886)4-26625111 ext. 2056, Fax: (886)426629167, E-mail: [email protected] Background: Patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) are at increased risk for urinary tract infection (UTI) because of their neurogenic lower urinary tract dysfunction. It is unknown, however, what the prevalence of renal damage due to UTI is in SCI patients. Methods: Eleven SCI patients without UTI history and 41 SCI patients with UTI history only received technetium-99m dimercaptosuccinic acid (Tc-DMSA) renal cortex scan were included in this study to evaluate whether UTI influences the prevalence of renal damage in SCI patients. Results: Among 52 SCI patients, 33 (63.5%) of SCI patient had abnormal Tc-DMSA renal scan findings. The SCI patients with UTI history had a significantly higher prevalence of abnormal Tc renal cortex scan findings than those without UTI history (P value < 0.05). Conclusion: We found that Tc-DMSA renal scan is a safe and noninvasive urological screening test to detect renal damage in SCI patients in this preliminary study.