BK Virus Nephropathy in the Native Kidney of a Liver Transplant Recipient

BK virus nephropathy (BKVN) develops from the reactivation of latent polyomavirus infection of urothelium and kidney tubular epithelium and is most prevalent in the allograft kidney.1 Latent infection frequently occurs early in life without clinical significance in the immune component host. Viral reactivation and spread into the permissive urothelium and kidney tubular epithelium, resulting in viruria, viremia, and less frequently renal dysfunction (i.e., BKVN), has been described in a multitude of immunosuppressed states, although most cases of BKVN occur in the renal allograft.