Confocal laser endomicroscopy for upper tract urothelial carcinoma: validation of the proposed criteria and proposal of a scoring system for real-time tumor grading

Abstract

Based on the previously proposed criteria, CLE enables accurate grading of papillary UTUC at a non-diagnostic rate of 19%. The most prevalent CLE criteria with the highest diagnostic potential for grading of papillary UTUC are cellular organization, morphology and cohesiveness of cells. The proposed scoring system may simplify the assessment of CLE images for UTUC grading but external validation is required.