- W E Berdon: Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York.
This article has tried to do two things: review the more commonly used imaging modalities and apply them to the topics of obstruction and reflux. Increasingly, sonography is the initial diagnostic tool, obviously the only one usable in utero. The VCUG is the next most important method, especially in working out the often confusing sonographic images of the upper urinary tracts. Nuclear medicine remains drastically underused; it is the best way to detect parenchymal inflammatory disease and offers a method of examination and follow-up that requires low dosages and allows quantification of data. It will be interesting 10 years from now to review this subject and see what remains of the old and current methods and what will emerge.