Performance of computed tomographic urography in diagnosis of upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma, in patients presenting with hematuria: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Computed tomographic urography (CTU) is a relatively new diagnostic imaging technique, which combines the diagnostic advantages introduced by helical tomographic imaging, with the established technique of imaging during the renal excretory phase, into one single examination. Increasing availability of multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) units, further promotes the technique as the “one-stop-shop” for the imaging investigation of patients with haematuria. We reviewed and meta-analyzed published literature, in order to evaluate the performance of CTU for the detection of upper urinary tract urothelial tumors. CTU proved to be a very sensitive and specific method for the detection of urothelial malignancy, with sensitivity ranging between 88% and 100%, and specificity between 93% and 100%. Pooled sensitivity was 96% (95% CI: 88–100%) and pooled specificity was 99% (95% CI: 98–100%). Direct comparison of the method with intravenous urography (IVU), confirmed the superiority of CTU over IVU in terms of sensitivity and specificity. Major drawbacks of CTU are increased radiation risk, injection of iodinated contrast media which may potentially be accompanied by serious side effects and increased cost, estimated as roughly three times that of IVU. According to our study, CTU is the method of choice for the detection of pathology in “high risk” haematuria patients, i.e. patients older than 40 years of age presenting with gross haematuria.