Plasma Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin diagnosed acute kidney injury in patients with systemic inflammatory disease and sepsis

AIM: Sepsis is the leading cause of intensive care unit (ICU) admission. Plasma Neutrophil Gelatinase Associated-Lipocalin (NGAL) is a promising biomarker for acute kidney injury (AKI) detection; however, it is also increased with inflammation and few studies have been conducted in non-Caucasian populations and/or in developing economies. Therefore, we evaluated plasma NGAL's diagnostic performance in the presence of sepsis and systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) in a Malaysian ICU cohort.

METHODS: This is a prospective observational study on patients with SIRS. Plasma creatinine (pCr) and NGAL were measured on ICU admission. Patients were classified according to the occurrence of AKI and sepsis.

RESULTS: Of 225 patients recruited, 129 (57%) had sepsis of whom 67 (52%) also had AKI. 96 patients (43%) had non-infectious SIRS, of whom 20 (21%) also had AKI. NGAL concentrations were higher in AKI patients within both the sepsis and non-infectious SIRS cohorts (both P