Abnormal renal echogenicity

What it means

Anomalous echogenicity of the kidney on ultrasound examination.

For diagnostic ultrasonography, high-frequency sound waves are generated and received by the ultrasonography transducer, which is placed on the skin. Returning sound waves (echoes) are processed by a computer and displayed on a computer screen. A gray-scale image is produced when the ultrasonography machine operates in B-mode, or brightness mode, in which returning echoes are represented as bright dots; the brightness of the dots represents the strength of the reflected echoes. Echogenicity, therefore, refers to how bright or dark something appears in the gray-scale image; the brighter something appears, the more echogenic it is. With regard to the kidney, echogenicity generally refers to how bright or dark the kidney parenchyma appears in comparison to the liver.

Part of the broader category