Urine Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin Measured at Admission to Predict Recovery from Acute Kidney Injury of Vietnamese ICU Patients

To evaluate the predictive value of urine Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin (NGAL) measured at the time of admission during the recovery from Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) after 90 days.

This study includes 101 adult patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) who were diagnosed as AKI (96 patients had been collected 24-hour urine and 5 patients with anuria). Acute kidney injury was diagnosed using the Acute Kidney Injury Network (AKIN) criteria. Urine NGAL was measured at admission using the BioVendor Human Lipocalin-2/NGAL ELISA.

The ratio of complete recovery patients after 90 days reached 71.9%. The mean of urine NGAL concentration in the recovery group was 242.04 ng/ml, lower significantly than that of non-recovery patients (371.1 ng/ml), p=0.007. At the cut-off value for 740.03 ng/ml, urine NGAL measured at admission predicted complete recovery with the area under the curve of ROC for urine NGAL = 0.888, p<0.001. Based on the multivariate regression analysis, serum urea, serum creatinine and urine NGAL were independent factors that effected the proportion of recovery in AKI patients (OR=0.856, p=0.023; OR=1.014, p=0.012 and OR=0.993, p<0.001, respectively).

Serum urea, serum creatinine and urine NGAL were independent factors that effected the proportion of recovery in AKI patients. Urine NGAL in AKI patients measured at the time of the admission time to ICU can be used as a prognostic biomarker of recovery.