Fig 1.
Examples of the evaluation of opacification scores of the proximal ureter on maximum intensity projection (MIP) images.
A, A 5-minute delay scored as 1 (<50%); B, A 5-minute delay scored as 2 (51–99%); and C, A 5-minute delay scored as 3 (100%).
Fig 2.
Axial CT images obtained in the excretory phase with a 5-minute delay in a 67-year-old man, with ROIs manually drawn at the anterior and posterior portions of the urinary bladder.
The sizes of the ROIs were kept constant on the anterior and posterior portions with a copy-and-paste function.
Table 1.
Opacification scores of the urinary systems.
Fig 3.
Maximum intensity projection images show the upper urinary tracts obtained in the three excretory phases in a 44-year-old man.
A, Excretory phase with a 5-minute delay. B, Excretory phase with a 10-minute delay. C, Excretory phase with a 15-minute delay. With a 5-minute delay, non-opacification was noted in the right ureter, but with a 10- or 15-minute delay, the non-opacified segments were delineated. On the other hand, just a 5-minute delay was sufficient for complete opacification of the left ureter. The numbers of completely opacified segments were 5, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, and 8 with the 5-, 10-, 15-, 5 + 10-, 5 + 15-, 10 + 15-, and 5 + 10 + 15-minute delays, respectively. Multi-phasic acquisition was thus able to delineate more segments.
Table 2.
Comparison among single-phasic excretory phase for complete and adequate opacification of the upper urinary tracts and the urinary bladder.
Table 3.
Comparison among single-, bi-, and tri-phasic excretory phase for complete and adequate opacification of the upper urinary tracts.
Table 4.
Homogeneity of the urinary bladder.