Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a frequent complication in patients in intensive care. A new laboratory test called urine neutrophil gelatinase associated lipocalin (NGAL) helps predict if patients will develop acute kidney injury, reports an upcoming study in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).
"As a stand-alone marker, urine NGAL performed moderately well in predicting ongoing and subsequent AKI," comments T. Alp Ikizler, MD (Vanderbilt University).
Another study, also in JASN, indicates that urine NGAL may also help in diagnosing HIV-related kidney disease affecting African Americans and black Africans. "NGAL was very specifically expressed in renal cysts-generating the new idea that NGAL may control the development of cysts in HIV-associated nephropathy," says Jonathan Barasch, MD, PhD (Columbia University, New York). He adds, "We and Prasad Devarajan, MD, identified NGAL in the kidney 10 years ago and its translation into a clinical entity in such a short time is quite a story. Almost every paper is positive for the association of NGAL and renal dysfunction/disease."