Interstitial cellular infiltration detected by fine-needle aspiration biopsy in nephritis

Fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) was used to detect renal mononuclear interstitial inflammation in 56 patients with various types of nephritis (20 IgA nephropathy, 8 focal necrotizing glomerulonephritis, 7 interstitial nephritis, 6 non-classifiable chronic glomerulonephritis, 5 mesangial proliferative (non-IgA) chronic glomerulonephritis, 4 focal glomerulosclerosis, 6 normal histology, who were examined for microscopic hematuria, and 7 controls). Regular renal biopsies for histological and immunofluorescence studies were simultaneously obtained, and available for comparative analysis (not controls). Differential counts of mononuclear infiltration and subtyping of T-cell infiltration into T-helper (T-h) and T-suppressor-cytotoxic (T-s-c) cells, as detected by immunoperoxidase stains from FNAB, were correlated to clinical manifestations and renal function tests. Generally, our results indicated increased mononuclear cell infiltration (monocytes, lymphocytes, and/or activated lymphocytes) in FNAB of patients with IgA nephropathy, interstitial nephritis or focal necrotizing glomerulonephritis (especially monocytes in IgA nephropathy and interstitial nephritis, p less than 0.05 compared with controls, lymphocytes in focal necrotizing glomerulonephritis, and non-classifiable glomerulonephritis, p less than 0.02 and 0.05, respectively). The number of infiltrating activated lymphocytes was significantly increased in focal necrotizing glomerulonephritis, interstitial nephritis and focal glomerulosclerosis, p less than 0.05, less than 0.01 and less than 0.01, respectively. FNAB was at least as sensitive as histological examination for the quantification of interstitial cellular infiltration, and it allowed for cytological differential counts. Patients had decreased T-h and increased T-s-c cell counts, which were accentuated in FNAB compared with peripheral blood, although there were strong positive correlations between local and peripheral counts (p less than 0.0001).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)