Vighnesh Walavalkar, MBBS
Associate Professor
Pathology
School of Medicine

In addition to his expertise in cytology (the study of cells to make diagnoses), he performs fine needle aspiration, a simple procedure in which a needle is used to draw a biopsy sample from a lump under the skin.

Walavalkar's research interests include renal diseases, kidney transplantation and cancer. He studies these conditions both at the cellular level and in relation to patient care.

Walavalkar earned his medical degree from Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore in India. He completed a residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center. At the University of Massachusetts Medical School, he completed a fellowship in surgical pathology, followed by a fellowship in cytopathology. He then completed a fellowship in renal pathology at UCSF.

• A multi-center retrospective cohort study defines the spectrum of kidney pathology in Coronavirus 2019 Disease (COVID-19).
  Kidney international 2021 May RM, Cassol C, Hannoudi A, Larsen CP, Lerma EV, Haun RS, Braga JR, Hassen SI, Wilson J, VanBeek C, Vankalakunti M, Barnum L, Walker PD, Bourne TD, Messias NC, Ambruzs JM, Boils CL, Sharma SS, …
• A retrospective observational study of benign anthracotic lymphadenitis and its association with PET avid lymph nodes in patients undergoing cancer evaluation.
  Journal of thoracic disease 2021 Ivanick NM, Shrestha P, Podolsky MJ, Walavalkar V, Lucas CH, Gesthalter YB, Seeley EJ
• Clinicopathologic Characteristics of JC Virus Nephropathy in Kidney Transplant Recipients.
  Transplantation 2021 Wiegley N, Walavalkar V, Aujla H, Chen LX, Huang Y, Lee BK, Jen KY
• Automated Computational Detection of Interstitial Fibrosis, Tubular Atrophy, and Glomerulosclerosis.
  Journal of the American Society of Nephrology : JASN 2021 Ginley B, Jen KY, Han SS, Rodrigues L, Jain S, Fogo AB, Zuckerman J, Walavalkar V, Miecznikowski JC, Wen Y, Yen F, Yun D, Moon KC, Rosenberg A, Parikh C, Sarder P
• A Distributed System Improves Inter-Observer and AI Concordance in Annotating Interstitial Fibrosis and Tubular Atrophy.
  Proceedings of SPIE--the International Society for Optical Engineering 2021 Shashiprakash AK, Lutnick B, Ginley B, Govind D, Lucarelli N, Jen KY, Rosenberg AZ, Urisman A, Walavalkar V, Zuckerman JE, Delsante M, Bissonnette MLZ, Tomaszewski JE, Manthey D, Sarder P
• Cancer of Unknown Primary in the Molecular Era.
  Trends in cancer 2021 Kato S, Alsafar A, Walavalkar V, Hainsworth J, Kurzrock R
• Progression of proliferative glomerulonephritis with monoclonal IgG deposits in pediatric patients.
  Pediatric nephrology (Berlin, Germany) 2020 Miller P, Xiao AY, Kung VL, Sibley RK, Higgins JP, Kambham N, Charu V, Lenihan C, Uber AM, Talley EM, Arora N, Walavalkar V, Laszik ZG, Nast CC, Troxell ML
• Membranous nephropathy in patients with HIV: a report of 11 cases.
  BMC nephrology 2020 Charu V, Andeen N, Walavalkar V, Lapasia J, Kim JY, Lin A, Sibley R, Higgins J, Troxell M, Kambham N
• #FNAFriday: How cytopathologists learn, teach, and share knowledge on Twitter.
  Diagnostic cytopathology 2020 Expósito-Afonso IJ, Alcaraz-Mateos E, Labiano T, Pijuan L, Temprana-Salvador J, Fitzhugh V, Fuller M, Madrigal E, Walavalkar V, Baloch ZW, Jiang XS
• Computational Segmentation and Classification of Diabetic Glomerulosclerosis.
  Journal of the American Society of Nephrology : JASN 2019 Ginley B, Lutnick B, Jen KY, Fogo AB, Jain S, Rosenberg A, Walavalkar V, Wilding G, Tomaszewski JE, Yacoub R, Rossi GM, Sarder P
• Cytologic processing of ureteral microbiopsies is associated with higher sensitivity for detection of urothelial carcinoma compared with conventional biopsy processing.
  Journal of the American Society of Cytopathology 2019 Sheridan TB, Walavalkar V, Yates JK, Owens CL, Fischer AH
• De novo leukocyte chemotactic factor 2 amyloidosis in a pediatric renal allograft, 15 years post-transplant.
  Pediatric transplantation 2019 Shamir ER, Lee MM, Walavalkar V
• Estrogen Receptor, Progesterone Receptor, and Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor-2 Testing in Breast Cancer: Assessing the Value of Repeated Centralized Testing in Excision Specimens.
  Applied immunohistochemistry & molecular morphology : AIMM 2019 Hariri N, Hasteh F, Walavalkar V, Roma AA, Fadare O
• Severe Renal Allograft Rejection Resulting from Lenalidomide Therapy for Multiple Myeloma: Case Report.
  Transplantation proceedings 2018 Walavalkar V, Adey DB, Laszik ZG, Jen KY
• Does a p53 "Wild-type" Immunophenotype Exclude a Diagnosis of Endometrial Serous Carcinoma?
  Advances in anatomic pathology 2018 Fadare O, Roma AA, Parkash V, Zheng W, Walavalkar V
• IgA-Dominant Glomerulopathy and Thrombotic Microangiopathy After Chemotherapy.
  Kidney international reports 2017 Dvanajscak Z, Karl BE, Sanchez AP, Walavalkar V
• Phenotypic alterations in breast cancer associated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy: A comparison with baseline rates of change.
  Annals of diagnostic pathology 2017 Hariri N, Roma AA, Hasteh F, Walavalkar V, Fadare O
• Hyperprogressors after Immunotherapy: Analysis of Genomic Alterations Associated with Accelerated Growth Rate.
  Clinical cancer research : an official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research 2017 Kato S, Goodman A, Walavalkar V, Barkauskas DA, Sharabi A, Kurzrock R
• CD4-Positive T-Cell Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma in an HIV Positive Patient.
  American journal of clinical pathology 2016 Nael A, Walavalkar V, Wu W, Nael K, Kim R, Rezk S, Zhao X
• Absence or Presence of High-Grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesion in Cervical Conization Specimens: A Clinicopathologic Study of 540 Cases.
  American journal of clinical pathology 2016 Walavalkar V, Stockl T, Owens CL, Manning M, Papa D, Li A, Khan A, Liu Y
• Significance of cytopathologist's review of Pap tests screened as negative for intraepithelial lesion or malignancy that are positive for high-risk human papillomavirus.
  Journal of the American Society of Cytopathology 2014 Walavalkar V, Fischer AH, Owens CL
• Utility of liquid-based cytologic examination of distal esophageal brushings in the management of Barrett esophagus: a prospective study of 45 cases.
  Journal of the American Society of Cytopathology 2014 Walavalkar V, Patwardhan RV, Owens CL, Lithgow M, Wang X, Akalin A, Nompleggi DJ, Zivny J, Wassef W, Marshall C, Levey J, Walter O, Fischer AH
• Cytologic diagnosis of metastatic alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma to the thyroid gland by fine-needle aspiration.
  Acta cytologica 2014 Walavalkar V, Fischer AH, Owens CL
• Evidence for increasing usage of low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion, cannot exclude high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL-H) Pap test interpretations.
  Cancer cytopathology 2013 Walavalkar V, Tommet D, Fischer AH, Liu Y, Papa DM, Owens CL
• Benign lymphoid aggregates in the bone marrow: distribution patterns of B and T lymphocytes.
  Human pathology 2012 Naemi K, Brynes RK, Reisian N, Johnston A, Dhillon R, Walavalkar V, Zhao X, Rezk SA
• Prostatic adenocarcinoma with solitary metastasis to the uvea.
  Pathology 2012 Walavalkar V, Said B, Dacosta-Iyer M, Ouyang Y
• Cytological diagnosis of extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma, nasal type, in cerebrospinal fluid.
  Cytopathology : official journal of the British Society for Clinical Cytology 2012 Walavalkar V, Oak J, Gu M
• Excessive therapeutic response in a case of blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm.
  Clinical advances in hematology & oncology : H&O 2012 Shieh MP, Reisian N, Walavalkar V, Slater LM, Lambrecht N