Imaging the Kidney - Special Topic Issue: Nephron Clinical Practice 2006, Vol. 103, No. 2 (Electronic book text)

Progress in imaging technologies has provided extremely powerful tools to address clinically and biologically important questions in whole organ studies. Parallel to this, advances in molecular probes, transgenic approaches and new delivery techniques have allowed for the development of intravital studies that can follow and quantify events with enhanced resolution. Moreover, 3-D reconstruction has been substantially improved, and acquisition times of cross-sectional imaging techniques have been shortened. More importantly, there has also been a strong tendency towards functional imaging. Although not yet considered first-line procedures for evaluating patients with renal disease, newer cross-sectional imaging techniques may rapidly become established in clinical practice. Also discussed in this publication are advances of radionucleotide studies, which now provide enhanced imaging of renal structure, as well as newer experimental imaging methods derived from clinical techniques. Delineating the principals, characterization and potential applications, as well as imaging software programs and quantitative approaches to data analysis, this publication is an ideal update on new advances enabling more accurate diagnosis and on new experimental approaches that may become tomorrow's clinical standards.