New videodensitometric method for measuring renal artery blood flow at routine arteriography: validation in the canine model.

A contrast medium was injected in the aortic arch and selectively in a renal artery to estimate the renal blood flow as a percentage of the cardiac output by the videodensitometric (VD) method. Twenty-six paired VD measurements in four mongrel dogs were obtained and the results compared to electromagnetic (EM) flow readings from the aortic arch and a renal artery. The relative renal blood flow estimated by the VD method averaged 9.1% and correlated with the EM flow average of 9.6% with r = 0.96. Previous in vitro investigations of relative flow in a model have now been validated in vivo. These results suggest that videodensitometry could be a clinical tool for measuring renal blood flow in conjunction with routine arteriography.