Renal Biopsy Laboratory Medicine

Updated: Apr 28, 2020
  • Author: Charbel E Chalouhy, MD; Chief Editor: Edward David Kim, MD, FACS  more...
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Laboratory Medicine

Laboratory Medicine Summary

The Banff grading system for renal biopsy of transplant allograft

The goal of the Banff process is integration of advances in histologic, serologic, and molecular diagnostic techniques to produce a consensus-based reporting system that offers precise composite scores and accurate routine diagnostics of allograft dysfunction and rejection.

The mainstay for interpretation of biopsy results from renal transplant allograft is based on the Banff grading system. This grading system allocates a score from 0 to 3 to each element analyzed by the pathologies: ie, hyaline arteriolar thickening, arteriolar hyalinosis, cg (glomerular double contours), ci (interstitial fibrosis), ct (tubular atrophy), i (inflammation), i-IFTA (interstitial inflammation in areas of interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy), mm (mesangial matrix expansion), ptc (peritubular capillaritis), PTC (peritubular capillary), t (tubulitis), v (intimal arteritis), and C4d (complement activation) scores. [22]