Computed tomography in the diagnosis of pelvic abscesses in renal transplant patients

M. J. Bia, D. Baggish, L. Katz, R. Gonzalez, A. S. Kliger and A. T. Rosenfield

Two renal transplant patients had fever and graft tenderness secondary to a gas-containing abscess around the transplanted kidney. Renal ultrasonography failed to identify the abscess in these cases because of the difficulty in differentiating bowel from gas-containing collections. Gallium citrate Ga 67 scanning, performed in one patient, did not delineate the abscess because interpretation was complicated by the presence of radioactivity in the bowel. In both cases, the pelvic abscess was identified correctly with the use of computed tomography (CT). The limitations of ultrasonography in identifying gas-containing collections should be recognized, and CT should be performed as one of the initial studies in evaluating a renal transplant patient with a suspected pelvic abscess.