Selective renal angiography: its value in renal transplantation.

To date angiography has been the most precise diagnostic modality for the evaluation of a transplanted kidney. In the immediate postoperative period angiography can clearly demonstrate the integrity of the vascular anastomoses, and in most cases helps to differentiate between acute tubular necrosis and acute rejection. It is also helpful in the evaluation of the transplant kidney later in the postoperative period, since it can provide some estimate of the vascular effects of chronic rejection and distinguish between hypertension secondary to chronic rejection or renal artery stenosis. Serial isotope techniques may play a more important role in the evaluation of the transplanted kidney in the future, but at present angiography is the diagnostic modality of choice at the Cleveland Clinic.