Analysis of the diagnostic capabilities of urinary neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin and serum procalcitonin for acute kidney injury at the early stage of critical care intensive care unit admission.

Background: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a disease that negatively affects patient prognosis and requires early diagnosis and treatment. Biomarkers that predict AKI are needed for early diagnosis of this disease.

Methods: We compared the AKI group and the non-AKI group in patients who were admitted to our critical care intensive care unit (ICU) and conducted a comparative study focusing on urinary neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (U-NGAL) and serum procalcitonin (PCT).

Results: Seventy-one out of 106 ICU inpatients were diagnosed with AKI in accordance with the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) criteria. Among the patients who were diagnosed with AKI stages 1 to 3, 94.4% of all patients reached the maximum stage by day 5 after admission. Comparing the non-AKI group and AKI stage 1 to 3 on days 1 to 3 after admission, U-NGAL and PCT levels in the stage 3 group were significantly higher than those in the non-AKI group. Additionally, in receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis on days 1-3 after admission, U-NGAL and PCT levels can be used as biomarkers for the diagnosis of AKI, and in particular, AKI stage 3 can be predicted and diagnosed with high accuracy. U-NGAL and PCT levels were also significantly higher in AKI due to sepsis and acute pancreatitis and due to sepsis, respectively.

Conclusions: Measuring U-NGAL and PCT levels as biomarkers for AKI may further improve the accuracy of AKI diagnosis in critical care ICU.