In an international study of 1,635 emergency-department patients, urinary neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (uNGAL) was the most useful of five urinary biomarkers in predicting the severity and duration of acute kidney injury (AKI) at the time of hospital admission, with 81% specificity and 68% sensitivity at a cutoff of 104 ng/mL.

In the study by Thomas L. Nickolas, MD, MS, and colleagues, which was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (2012;59:246-255), uNGAL and another biomarker, urinary kidney injury molecule 1, predicted a composite outcome of dialysis initiation or death during hospitalization, improved the net risk classification compared with conventional assessments, and identified a substantial subpopulation of patients who had low serum creatinine at hospital admission but were at risk of adverse events.

From the March 01, 2012 Issue of Renal and Urology News

Topics:

Acute Kidney Injury