CULTURES OF ASPIRATION BIOPSY SPECIMENS IN THE IMMUNOLOGICAL MONITORING OF RENAL-TRANSPLANTS

Objective: Graft-infiltrating cells (GIC) have been studied in heart, lung, and Liver transplants and have been shown to have greater prolif erative ability when taken from rejecting allografts, Our aim was to s tudy GIC harvested by fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) in renal tr ansplant recipients. Patients and Methods: 93 adult patients entered t he study, The FNABs were done on the 7th, 14th, and 30th day after tra nsplantation in stable cases and whenever a rejection crisis supervene d. Results: The proliferation responses of GIC were significantly high er in rejection than in stable cases during the Ist month after transp lantation, The sensitivity for rejection was 96.4%, the specificity 91 .3%, the negative predictive value 98.7%, and the positive predictive value tvas 93.3% among dysfunctioning grafts. Conclusions: The study o f the proliferative capacity of graft-infiltrating cells in renal tran splants is a safe and very useful immunologic monitoring tool, and it could improve the FNAB diagnostic accuracy.