Urinary cytodiagnosis of acute renal allograft rejection using the cytocentrifuge

The clinical diagnosis of acute renal allograft rejection in immunosuppressed recipients can often be predicted or confirmed on the basis of characteristic urinary cytologic findings. Use of cytocentrifugation permits a simple, rapid, reproducible and semiquantitative means of preparing cytologic urinary specimens of diagnostic quality from small quantities of urine. The cytodiagnosis of acute renal rejection was established before or on the same day a clinical diagnosis of rejection was made in the majority of renal transplant cases studied over a 12-month period. Renal tubular cells were found to be the exfoliated cells of greatest value in predicting an acute rejection episode, and their persistence has prognostic importance.