METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR QUANTITATIVELY EVALUATING A KIDNEY

摘要

A method and apparatus for monitoring a kidney that consists of monitoring the corticomedullary sodium concentration gradient in a kidney by an imaging technique selected from the group consisting of MRI, optical imaging, computed tomography (CT), ultrasound or positron emission tomography (PET), to obtain dynamic images; processing the obtained images to quantitatively determine, pixel by pixel of the images, the concentration of sodium along the corticomedullary axis of the kidney; and mapping the sodium distribution at high resolution to indicate the sodium concentration gradient of the corticomedullary axis of the kidney. Preferably the monitoring is carried out using ²³Na MRI. Maps of the sodium distribution are displayed.