UC Davis

Computed tomography (CT) is able to measure the attenuation of urine in Hounsfield units (HU) on abdominal imaging studies. This study was designed to measure the correlation of urine attenuation with urine specific gravity in urine samples of 40 dogs, providing a noninvasive measure of urine concentration. The HU of urine explained 72% of the variance in measured urine specific gravity [R² = 0.72, F(1,38) = 95.55, P < 0.001]. This noninvasive measurement can be used to estimate urine concentration in dogs undergoing abdominal CT imaging.