Renal insufficiency: usefulness of gadodiamide-enhanced renal angiography to supplement CO2-enhanced renal angiography for diagnosis and percutaneous treatment.

PURPOSE: To determine whether gadodiamide is a safe and useful angiographic contrast agent for help in diagnosis and percutaneous treatment of renal artery stenosis in patients with renal insufficiency.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Diagnostic renal angiography and percutaneous renal interventions were performed by using gadodiamide (total dose, 0.3 mmol/kg) and CO2 as intraarterial contrast agents in 25 procedures in 24 patients with renal insufficiency. Serum creatinine levels were obtained within 24 hours before and at 24 and 48 hours after the procedure. Increases in serum creatinine of more than 44 mumol/L were considered clinically important. Gadodiamide-enhanced angiograms were compared with CO2-enhanced angiograms.
RESULTS: In 23 (92%) of 25 procedures, there was no increase in serum creatinine level at 48 hours. One patient with acute and chronic rejection of a renal transplant and one with evidence of cholesterol embolization had a clinically important increase in serum creatinine level at 48 hours. No marked increase in creatinine level was observed in patients with relatively low baseline levels (n = 19). Gadodiamide-enhanced angiograms appeared to be better than CO2-enhanced angiograms for help in identifying renal artery occlusions, visualizing renal vessels incompletely filled with CO2, and determining the progress of intervention.
CONCLUSION: Gadodiamide appears to be a safe and useful intraarterial contrast agent in patients with renal insufficiency and can be used to supplement or confirm CO2-enhanced angiographic findings.