Roentgenographic Measurement of Normal Kidney Size in Korean Children

Choi, Seung Kang; Park, Young Yo; Oh, Ki Keun

Abstract

The kidney sizes including length, with and cortical thickness were measured on IVP of normal kidney in 366 Korean children according to age Height of L2 vertebra and distance between top of L1 vertebra to bottom of L4 vertebra ware also measured simultaneously and then correlated with kidney sizes. At first this report was aimed to provide the normal value of kidney size in Korean children which is often decisive to evaluate the renal status, but in addition game interesting dates were obtained through this study. 1. The kidney size which was 6.5-6.6cm. in length and 3.3-3.5cm in width at age 1 had rapid growth in age 1 and 2 and then relatively constant growing rate, so that at age 15 11.7-12.1cm. and 6.3-6.5cm. in size were gained. This was under 1cm. smaller size than that of Korean adults. At each age group the normal variation was 1 -3cm. deviation from the mean. 2. Comparing with the western authors the kidney size of Korean children was very similar to that of western children 3. The kidney index, width venous length, was constant at any age with the ratio 0.49-0.52 on Rt. side 2nd 0.5-0.55 on Lt side. 4. Kidney cortical thickness which was 1.7cm at upper pole and 1.4cm. at mid portion at age 1, increased constantly upto 2.9cm. and 2.2cm. at upper 15. In each age group the index, cortical thickness versus width, was 0.3-0.4 invariably. In consideration of this result with the length-width index the calyopelvic system growth might be more greater than that of kidney cortex. 5. Kidney mean length was a little more longer than the distance between L1 and L4 under age 2, but tended to be shorter than L1-L4 distance except the age 3-5 in which both were very similar, so that kidney length became 2.1-2.5cm shorter at age 15. 6. Mid cortical thickness was very similar to the height of L2 vertebral body under the age 10, while in age above 10 the height of the vertebra L2 was more greater so that became similar to the upper cortical thickness.