Abstract
Objective : Due to the degenerative cellular morphology, diagnosis often remains obscure in catheter urine cytology of the renal pelvis and ureter. We applied the 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) staining method reported by Fujimoto et al. to catheter urine cytology of the renal pelvis and ureter.
Study Design : We applied 5-ALA staining to 35 natural urine samples to confirm its usefulness. Then, we applied the staining to 30 catheter urine samples obtained from the renal pelvis and ureter.
Results : The results of 5-ALA staining of the natural urine cytology samples were similar to those reported by Fujimoto et al. In the cases of the catheter urine samples obtained from the renal pelvis and ureter, the conventional cytologic (Papanicolaou) staining yielded the following results : malignancy in 6 cases (20%), suspicion of malignancy in 5 cases (17%), atypical cells in 7 cases (23%), and a negative result of cytology in 12 cases (40%). When the results of 5-ALA staining were combined with the results of conventional staining, the following results were obtained : malignancy in 14 cases (46%), suspicion of malignancy in 0 case (0%), atypical cells in 4 cases (13%), and a negative result of cytology in 12 cases (40%).
Conclusion : 5-ALA staining diminished the number of cases with “suspicion of malignancy” and also the discrimination difficulties in diagnosis, and enabled more accurate urinary cytologic diagnosis.
