Hi, GP suspected that my dad might have kidney stone. And he ordered him to get a CT scan done. My question is... is CT scan necessary to detect kidney stone? Would X-Ray and/or ultrasound not be sufficient enough to determine kidney stones existence, position and size?Thank you so much for answering my query
Hi, Plain CT scan without contrast is the investigation of choice for renal stone disease. Ultrasound is operator dependent and there is a lot of interference form bowel gas and sometimes difficult to localize the stone, and same goes with X-ray too.However, if the symptoms are very obvious to stone disease, ultrasound is preferred for sheer simplicity, economical and lack of radiation exposure. I go with ultrasound and then order for CT if required.