Background: Ultrasound is a non-invasive imaging modality, and it is cost effective while CT in invasive that uses ionizing radiations, yet it is difficult on ultrasound to diagnose calculi in ureter hence for evaluation of ureteric calculi CT scan is gold standard modality.
Objective: To compare the detection of renal& urinary tract calculi (nephrolithiasis & urolithiasis) on ultrasound and CT.
Material and methods: The data bases PubMed, ProQuest, and Google scholar and research gate were searched with the key words: nephrolithiasis on ultrasound and CT, sensitivity, specificity, from 2010 to 2021. For inclusion and exclusion of studies independently screened the titles and abstracts of full and related articles. Articles that had information about nephrolithiasis, urolithiasis at ultrasound and CT and its sensitivity and specificity were included.
Results: In total, 28 studies were found on renal & urinary tract calculi at ultrasound and computed tomography. This literature review demonstrates that computed tomography is characterized by high sensitivity and specificity in diagnosing renal, ureteric calculi while ultrasound has low sensitivity and specificity.
Conclusions: Ultrasound is the best modality for imaging calculi within the kidney, a well hyper echoic mass with posterior acoustic shadow is identified as stone on gray scale, color Doppler can be used for demarcation of stone. At Color Doppler twinkling artifact appears around the calculi hence it can be differentiated by hyper echoic renal sinuses but this is crucially dependant on the size and anatomical position of the stone. The ultrasonic evaluation either overestimates or misinterprets the calculi size while CT gives an exact measurement, position with authentic sensitivity and specificity. Hence, CT is the gold standard for detection of renal calculi.
Recommendation: Ultrasound is a non-invasive imaging modality and it is cost effective while CT in invasive that uses ionizing radiations, yet it is difficult on ultrasound to diagnose calculi in ureter hence for evaluation of ureteric calculi CT scan is gold standard modality.
THE COMPARATIVE STUDY TO DETECT RENAL & URINARY TRACT CALCULI (NEPHROLITHIASIS AND UROLITHIASIS) ON ULTRASOUND AND CT.
