To determine the correlation between renal artery stenosis and renal artery trunk morphological features, especially the renal artery variation of curvature.

A total of 62 patients[37 men and 25 women, aged 36-78(52.64±16.32) years] with diagnosed unilateral renal artery stenosis were subjected to CT angiography. The data between stenotic renal arteries and nonstenotic renal arteries were measured. These data included the inner diameter of the renal artery trunk, cross-sectional area, length, main CT value, the ratio of CT value of renal artery to abdominal aorta(RA/AA), average enhanced CT value of the renal cortex, maximum curvature, distance from the starting point to the maximum curvature vertex of the renal artery trunk, and the distance from the starting point to the narrow proximal side of the renal artery stenosis. Contrast analysis of the correlation was also performed.T test was used for all comparisons between groups in statistics.

All data were divided into two groups(62 cases of stenotic renal arteries and 62 cases of nonstenotic renal arteries). The renal maximum curvature of the plaque side(0.15±0.02) was significantly greater than those in the normal side(0.08±0.02), and the differences were significant(t=19.487, P<0.05). The other parameters including the inner diameter of the renal artery trunk, cross-sectional area, length, renal artery CT value, RA/AA, and average enhanced CT value of the renal cortex were(5.39±0.53) mm, (20.52±7.22) mm², (34.51±13.12) mm, (349.54±51.23) HU, (94.25±3.46)%, (278.41±35.47) HU and(5.27±0.62) mm, (18.97±5.05) mm², (35.27±14.74) mm, (353.31±54.37) HU, (93.46±3.62)%, (284.21±37.92) HU, respectively. All differences had no statistical significance(t=1.158, 1.385, 0.303, 0.397, 1.242, and 0.879, respectively; all P>0.05). The distance from the starting point to the maximum curvature vertex of the renal artery trunk in the narrow and normal sides were(9.62±1.34) cm and(9.79±1.47) cm, respectively, and the difference was not statistically significant(t=0.673, P>0.05). The distance from the starting point to the narrow proximal side of the renal artery stenosis was(9.42±1.61) cm, and no significant difference(t=0.752, P>0.05) was observed between the distance[(19.62±1.34) cm] from the starting point to the maximum curvature vertex and to the narrow proximal side.

CT angiography can directly show the shape of renal artery trunk, which variation curvature has a certain correlation with the renal artery stenosis.

Renal artery obstruction; Morphology; Angiography; Tomography, X-ray computed