The third difficulty is that many BKVN cases show tubulointerstitial

inflammation mimicking T-cell mediated acute rejection, which is another cause of misdiagnosis. Interpretation of the inflammation is still under debate; concurrent acute rejection, or click here inflammation as an anti-viral immune response. The relationship between viral infection and rejection is known to be bi-directional: viral infection can trigger rejection or vice versa. Recent studies suggest that putative episodes of acute rejection develop at the same time or after the onset of viruria.[22, 23] In the setting of sustained BK viruria, biopsies with rejection-like episodes that satisfy Banff criteria for diagnosis do not always respond to steroids,[23] suggesting the inflammatory response is induced by BKV. In addition, with regard to biopsy samples of BKVN, Menter et al. reported that tissue obtained in the decreasing phase of the plasma RG7204 BK viral load showed more severe interstitial infiltrates and tubulitis,[24] suggesting that the immune response that facilitates the clearance

of the virus from tissues might cause self-limiting tubulointerstitial nephritis. It is currently thought that inflammation from viral or allograft antigens cannot be reliably distinguished by light microscopy. Although several molecules have been reported to be markers for distinguishing BKVN and rejection,[25-27] they are not yet in clinical application. Further study is required to identify molecular markers in biopsy tissues, urine or blood samples that distinguish the cause of inflammation easily in routine practice. The ability to predict the clinical outcome in individual patients is important in BKVN. Clinical factors reported to be associated

with a poor prognosis include deceased donor, female recipient, high serum creatinine, serum creatinine increase from baseline, late diagnosis and plasma viral load.[14, 28-30] As BKVN is ultimately a pathological diagnosis, there has been much interest in exploring the effects of histologic variables on the course of the disease. The selleck chemicals llc percentage of tubular cross-sections showing infection and degree of interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy was identified as important in an early study.[30] A composite system to stage the disease based on viral cytopathic effect, extent of inflammation and severity of fibrosis was first proposed by Drachenberg et al. (University of Maryland schema),[11] and AST has published variations of this schema (AST schema).[9, 10] The Banff Working Group also proposed a staging system in 2009, which places emphasis on the extent of virus-induced tubular epithelial injury as measured by necrosis, cell lysis, shedding into the tubular lumen, and denudation of tubular basement membranes (Banff Working Proposal).[12, 13] The three staging systems are summarized in the Table 1.