Noninvasive procedures for diagnosis of renovascular hypertension in renal transplant recipients--a prospective analysis.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the selectivity and specificity of noninvasive procedures for diagnosis of clinically suspected posttransplant renovascular hypertension. We prospectively investigated 25 renal transplant recipients with arterial hypertension and clinically suspected stenosis of the graft artery (8 female and 17 male patients; ages 45 +/- 15 years). We performed a captopril test with 25 mg captopril (n = 25), renography with technetium-99m diethylene triamine penta-acetic acid (99mTc-DTPA) before and after angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibition with determination of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and effective renal plasma flow (ERPF) (n = 23) and color-coded duplex ultrasonography of the transplant kidney vessels (n = 24). Renal transplant artery stenosis (RTAS) was excluded by renal arteriography in 20 patients and by operative evaluation or clinical follow-up in 5 patients. We identified 4 patients with RTAS and renovascular hypertension. The noninvasive methods showed the following results (sensitivity/specificity): (1) captopril test: 75%/67%; (2) renography combined with ACE-inhibition: 75%/84%; and (3) color-coded duplex ultrasonography: 100%/75%. We conclude that in patients with clinical evidence of RTAS most noninvasive diagnostic procedures are not sufficiently accurate to exclude the diagnosis. Only color-coded duplex ultrasonography did not fail to detect all patients with RTAS and may act as a screening test. Intraarterial renal angiography remains the most reliable and as-yet indispensable diagnostic test for transplant recipients to rule out RTAS.