“I am looking about slightly increased renal parenchymal echogenicity”, some patients ask the question on our website. In order to help patients have a good understanding, we have consulted the kidney experts team from Shijiazhuang Hetaiheng Hospital, getting the following contents.

Parenchyma is the functional part of an organ (while stroma is the supporting tissues). Echogencity means ability to produce an echo. So parenchymal echogencity means the ability of the functional part of an organ to produce an echo. Renal parenchymal echohenicity is a kind of imaging terminology, which can present some renal abnormalities. In most condition, increased renal parenchymal echogenicity indicates that there is a certain degree of kidney damage or renal parenchymal inflammation. However, for that alone, we can see that we cannot get a definite diagnosis. Generally, the doctor will consider the following aspects:

1. Chronic Nephritis or CKD: renal parenchyma becomes thin (less than 13mm). But from the point, we cannot decide the real parenchyma damage.

2. Blood kidney disease: it is induced by the blood lesions. And usually, renal parenchyma becomes thick and the volume is increased.

3. Gouty Nephripathy: kidney lesions is caused by gout, and renal parenchyma echogencity becomes increasing and thin. Besides, there are many stone echoes in the collection system.

In addition, Nephrotic Syndrome, Polycystic Kidney Disease, kidney cyst, kidney stone and so on also can inducethe increased renal parenchyma echogencity.

Therefore, if you are told have the condition in your physical test (B-ultrasound examination), you should do other tests like blood test, urine test, or even kidney biopsy and so on. These test can not only determine which kidney disease you do have, but also can reflect the degrees of your kidney damage and remaining renal function. Only getting the correct diagnosis, can you get the most safe and effective treatments.

The mentioned above are the general introduction about the “Some Facts about Increased Renal Parenchymal Echogenicity”. If you have questions after reading, you can talk with our Online Doctor or email to renal-disease@hotmail.com and we will do our best to help you.