Calculation of Kidney Volumes with Magnetic Resonance in Patients with Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease: Comparison between Methods

Autosomal dominant polycystic renal disease (ADPKD) is the most frequent kidney inheritable disease, characterized by the presence of numerous bilateral renal cysts, causing a progressive increase in total kidney volume (TKV) and a progressive loss of renal function. Several methods can be used to measure TKV by using MRI, and they differ in complexity, accuracy and time consumption. This study was performed to assess the performance of the ellipsoid method and the semi-automatic segmentation method, both for TKV and SKV (single kidney volume) computation. In total, 40 patients were enrolled, and 78 polycystic kidneys analyzed. Two independent operators with different levels of experience evaluated renal volumetry using both methods. Mean error for ellipsoid method for SKV computation was −2.74 ± 11.79% and 3.25 ± 10.02% for the expert and the beginner operator, respectively (p = 0.0008). A Wilcoxon test showed a statistically significant difference between the two operators for both methods (SKV p = 0.0371 and 0.0034; TKV p = 0.0416 and 0.0171 for the expert and the beginner operator, respectively). No inter-operator significant difference was found for the semi-automatic method, in contrast to the ellipsoid method. Both with a Wilcoxon test and Bland–Altman plot, statistically significant differences were found when comparing SKV and TKV measurements obtained with the two methods for both operators, even if the differences are stronger for the beginner operator than for the expert one. The semi-automatic segmentation method showed more inter-observer reproducibility. The ellipsoid method, in contrast, appears to be affected by greater inter-observer variability, especially when performed by operators with limited experience.