[Administration of iodinated contrast in patients with pre-existing renal failure: a review].

Contrast-induced nephropathy (CIN) is an important and well-known cause of acute renal failure. The published literature contains numerous clinical trials describing the relative performance of various contrast agents. This review provides a comparison of different contrast agents and assesses the relative risk of clinical nephrotoxicity among them in patients with pre-existing renal insufficiency, which appear to be the patients at highest risk for CIN with all classes of these agents. Overall, the nonionic dimeric agents perform similarly to the nonionic monomeric agents in this regard.