[Evaluation of urinary cytology for upper urinary tract disease]

One hundred and seventy-two patients with upper urinary tract disease were examined by cytological study of ureteral urine which was taken by ureteral catheterization. Of 139 patients with benign disease or ureteral stricture due to non-urological cancer, only one case with renal cyst revealed positive findings (false positive rate: 0.7%). Two positive cases, which were a renal hemorrhage without followup and a uterine cervical cancer with squamous cancer cells in the ureteral urine, were excluded. Although 6 of 17 (35%) uroepithelial cancers in the upper urinary tract were registered as positive, this examination was little use for detecting stage pTa, grade 1 or papillary non-invasive tumors. However, 2 out of 12 (17%) renal pelvic or ureteral cancer patients with negative results of voided urine were cytologically detected by ureteral urine. Five out of 6 cases of these cancers demonstrated malignant cells in the renal pelvic urine sampled from surgical specimen. We have recently experienced aspiration cytology for upper urinary tract disease, using the percutaneous puncture method, and five of 7 upper urinary tract patients were cytologically diagnosed. This procedure could be valuable for detecting even patients with associated bladder cancer or failure of ureteral catheterization.