What are the common ways to check for hamartomas?

What are the common ways to check for hamartoma? Hamartoma is also a relatively common benign tumor. Although it can occur in many parts of the body, the most common one is renal hamartoma. If renal hamartoma occurs, there will be some corresponding symptoms. Paying attention to these symptoms and checking them in time is a good way to ensure the treatment effect. So, what are the common ways to check for hamartoma?

Inspection items

1. Laboratory examination

Urine examination may show occult blood. Bilateral renal hamartoma may present with hypertension and renal insufficiency, and laboratory tests may show abnormalities in blood creatinine and urea nitrogen.

2. Imaging examination

(1) Ultrasound examination is quite characteristic. The fat and blood vessels in the tumor show evenly distributed dense high-echo areas, while the muscle and hemorrhage parts show low-echo areas.

(2) X-ray of the abdomen shows unclear renal contours, disappearance of the psoas major muscle shadow, and calcification in the renal area. Urinary tract angiography shows that the mass compresses the renal pelvis and calyces, causing them to deform, lengthen, or shorten, but there is no invasion phenomenon.

(3) CT is the main method for diagnosing renal hamartoma. It is a mass with uneven density and high fat content, and the CT value is -40 to -90 Hu.

(4) MRI In recent years, MRI examination has also played an increasingly important role in the diagnosis of renal hamartoma.

Differential Diagnosis

Renal malignant tumor: Renal hamartoma contains a large amount of adipose tissue, and the difference in acoustic impedance between fat and surrounding tissue is very large, so it appears as a strong echo during B-ultrasound examination; and because renal cancer does not contain adipose tissue, it appears as a low echo during B-ultrasound examination, but sometimes atypical renal hamartoma with very little fat component is encountered, and it is difficult to distinguish it from renal cancer. In the same principle, adipose tissue appears as low density on CT, and a negative CT value can be diagnosed as a hamartoma, but hamartoma with little fat component is also difficult to distinguish from renal cancer under CT. In addition, MRI scanning is also a good method for diagnosing hamartoma. However, in clinical practice, for hamartoma with little fat component, it is often necessary to combine B-ultrasound, CT and MRI scanning to make a clear diagnosis.