Hanyang Medical Reviews  2006;26(3):32-47

Pathology of Renal Transplantation.

Moon Hyang PARK 1

Affiliations

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Keywords

Kidney transplantation; Graft rejection; Pathology

Country

Republic of Korea

Language

Korean

Abstract

Even with improved immunosuppressive therapies, graft rejection remains the major cause of failure. Renal biopsy is the most sensitive tool and gold standard for the diagnosis of rejection and other causes of graft dysfunction. Because of the large number of conditions that can affect the allograft, sometimes in combination, renal transplantation pathology is one of the most challenging areas for the renal pathologist. The major causes of allograft dysfunction include rejection, postoperative acute tubular necrosis, perfusion injury, drug toxicity, obstruction, major vascular occlusion, infection, allergic interstitial nephritis, recurrent or de novo glomerular disease, and post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease. The criteria for grading rejection by the Banff 97 schema and the new concept of acute antibody-mediated rejection are introduced.