Preliminary Evaluation of Renal BOLD MRI for Monitoring Progression in CKD Patients

Muhammad E Haque¹, Ujala Bokhary¹, Shonny Fettman², Stuart Sprague², Pottumarthi Prasad¹

Conventional blood markers are not sufficient to assess the severity of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and the risk for progression. It is highly desirable to develop new non-invasive markers that could reliably monitor the progression of disease over time. Renal fibrosis is considered as a hallmark of CKD and hypoxia is known to trigger fibrogenesis. We performed a preliminary cross-sectional study to compare BOLD MRI measurements in a group of CKD patients against healthy controls. We have observed a trend of increased hypoxia in CKD and a reduced response to furosemide in the medulla.