Assessment of kidney volumes from MRI: acquisition and segmentation techniques

Abstract

Objective: The prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) is increasing worldwide. In Europe alone, at least 8% of the population currently has some degree of CKD. CKD is associated with serious comorbidity, reduced life expectancy, and high economic costs; hence, early detection and adequate treatment of kidney disease are important.

Conclusion: We review state-of-the-art MRI acquisition techniques for CKD, with a special focus on image segmentation methods used for the estimation of kidney volume.