Renal Length and Its Relationship with the Height of an Individual: A Review

Kidney plays an important role in our body such as excretes metabolic wastes, maintaining the equilibrium between fluid and electrolyte, control of blood pressure, erythropoiesis etc. Loss of kidney mass and kidney function alters the length and size of kidney. Many diseases adversely affect the kidney leading to its enlargement or reduction. Renal dimensions are also greatly affected by age, gender and body mass index. The methods of assessment of changes in the dimensions of visceral organs by using clinical methods are difficult and unreliable and there may occur subjective errors. Thus now-a-days, there are several newer techniques like x-rays, USG, CT, and MRI etc to detect renal pathology. Thus measurement of renal length and to establish its normal range serves as a baseline tool for early diagnosis and intervention. We tried to present a comprehensive account of the research conducted so far to establish relationship between renal length and one of the anthropometric parameter, height of an individual.