THURSDAY, June 18, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- For patients with solid renal masses (SRMs), preoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can predict postnephrectomy development of chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to a study published recently in the Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
Mira M. Liu, Ph.D., from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and colleagues examined whether preoperative multiparametric MRI can predict CKD development and progression to stage 3 CKD in a prospective study involving 43 participants undergoing nephrectomy for SRMs.
Twenty-nine of the participants completed 12-month follow-up. The researchers found that among 19 (66 percent) who had a baseline normal estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), 37 percent developed stage 3 CKD. There were correlations for eGFR from dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI and tubule diffusion with baseline eGFR. eGFR decline was predicted by reduced vascular diffusion (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [AUC], 0.75 to 0.83 and diagnostic odds ratio [DOR], 6.8 to 16.5). The strongest predictors of CKD development were a larger contralateral apparent diffusion coefficient corticomedullary difference (AUC, 0.89; DOR, 22.5) and clinical CKD risk score (AUC, 0.81; DOR, 5.5).
"What makes this work especially exciting is that it suggests MRI may reveal how hard the kidneys are already working to maintain healthy function before surgery takes place," Liu said in a statement. "That hidden stress may help explain why some patients are more vulnerable to kidney disease afterward, even when their kidney function initially appears normal."
The study was funded by Bayer HealthCare.
