Urinary Obstruction, Stone Disease, and Infection

Urinary tract infections are a common urologic ailment which affects 150 million people worldwide every year. Even though the diagnosis can be made based upon the patient’s clinical symptoms and the laboratory results in most cases, diagnostic imaging can play a role in the assessment of patients who don’t respond to medical therapy. Ultrasound and multidetector CT are useful imaging modalities in the evaluation of patients with both acute and chronic urologic infection such as either pyelonephritis or renal abscess. MDCT also plays a vital role in the evaluation of patients with symptomatic stone disease. Struvite stones or infection stones develop in patients with recurrent urinary tract infections. Potential complications can arise from chronic infection stones, such as chronic obstructive pyelonephritis, pyonephrosis, xanthogranulomatous pyelonephritis, and end-stage renal replacement lipomatosis. In this section, we discuss urologic infections such as pyelonephritis, pyonephrosis, renal abscess, pyelonephritis, emphysematous pyelonephritis, and renal tuberculosis as well as complications of infected renal stones.