Urinary cytology in experimental toxic renal injury.

Aspirin causes the desquamation of certain epithelial cells and this effect can be demonstrated both in the stomach and, in particular, in the kidney (Harvald, Valdorf-Hansen, and Nielsen, 1960; Harvald and Clausen, 1960; Scott, Denman, and Dorling, 1963; Prescott, 1965, 1966). In the case of the kidney the nephron is lined by a variety of different epithelial cells and it is not clear which of these types of cell is excreted in response to aspirin. In view of the development of analgesic nephritis in a proportion of people who habitually take combinations of analgesics which include aspirin, it is of some interest to localize the site of this desquamative action of aspirin on the kidney. This paper is an account of a morphological study of the cells excreted after giving a series of nephrotoxins of known action to rats. The cells excreted were compared both with their site of origin and with the cells excreted in response to aspirin.