Normal Anatomy and Variants of Renal Vasculature with Multidetector Computed Tomographyin a Tertiary Care Hospital: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study

INTRODUCTION: Preoperative multisection computed tomography evaluation can provide necessary anatomic information in minimally invasive surgeries. This study was done to estimate the prevalence and pattern of variations of renal vasculature through contrast-enhanced computed tomography in patients referred to the radiology department of a tertiary care hospital. METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted from 6th April 2016 to 6th April 2017. Ethical approval was taken. The triple-phase contrast-enhanced computed tomography was performed on 188 patients enrolled through convenient sampling. The images were evaluated in unenhanced, arterial, and venous phases for the vascular variants. Data were analyzed based on the anatomical types of variations and descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. RESULTS: Out of the 188 patients, 60 (31.9%) had accessory renal arteries. The most common variant was hilar arteries which comprised 38 cases (20.2%) whereas polar arteries were present in 21 (11.1%) cases and the capsular artery was present in one (0.5%) case. Early bifurcation of the renal artery was noted in 15 (8%) cases with 10 (5.3%) on the right and 5 (2.7%) on the left side. Twelve (6.3%) cases of the double right renal vein were noted whereas retroaortic left renal vein was noted in only 4(2.1%) cases. CONCLUSIONS: Based on our study, almost one in three patients had accessory renal arteries and eighty-five out of a thousand patients had variants of renal veins.