Value of Urinary NGAL for Predicting Acute Kidney Injury Secondary to Decompensated Cirrhosis
Authors: Yousef Tarek Mohamed , Salama Mohamed Magdy , El Metwally Ahmed Ahmed , Morsy Haitham Ahmed 
Published: July 2024

Background

Physicians caring for patients with cirrhosis should recognize the acute or chronic character of renal disease; the causes of renal injury; the clinical conditions leading concomitantly to acute kidney injury (AKI) and liver dysfunction, and the prognostic factors associated with the progression of AKI. Hypovolemia (due to diuretics, hemorrhage, diarrhea), acute tubular necrosis, sepsis, nephrotoxic agents (such as non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, aminoglycosides radiological contrasts) and hepatorenal syndrome-type 1 are the most common causes of AKI in cirrhotic patients.

Aim of the Work

The aim of this study was to evaluate urinary Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin (uNGAL) as a diagnostic biomarker for different causes of acute kidney injury in liver cirrhosis.

Patients and Methods

This was a cross sectional study done in patients with liver cirrhosis hospitalized at the Gastroenterology Department of the Ain shams university hospital.

Results

We found that in the comparison between HRS and AKI regarding HB, WBCs, Platelets, ALT, AST, Albumin, INR, Bilirubin, Urea, Creatinine, Na, Urinary Cr, Urinary Na and FeNa%, there was highly statistically significant difference found between two groups regarding Urinary Na and Fe Na%, Platelets, AST, Bilirubin and Na, and there was no statistically significant difference found between two groups regarding HB, WBCs, ALT, Albumin, INR, Urea, Creatinine and Urinary Cr. While in the Correlation between NGAL With Age, HB, WBCs, Platelets, ALT, AST, Albumin, INR, Bilirubin, Urea, Creatinine, Na, Urinary Cr, Urinary Na and FeNa%, we found that there was Non statically significant correlation Between NGAL, Age, HB, WBCs, Platelets, ALT, Albumin, INR, Bilirubin, Urea, Creatinine, Na and Urinary Cr, and there was statically significant Negative correlation Between NGAL, Urinary Na and FeNa%, and there was statically significant positive correlation Between NGAL and AST.

Conclusion

It is well known that development of acute kidney injury (AKI) increases mortality in hospitalized cirrhotic patients; therefore many novel markers have been studied for early detection, differential diagnosis and prognosis in cirrhotic patients with AKI. NGAL is a newly identified member of the lipocalin family that is signifcantly expressed in injured epithelial cells. It can lead to rapid increases in NGAL secretion from glomeruli, thus increasing NGAL concentrations in the urine. In addition, its concentration often increases within 2 h of kidney injury. Urinary NGAL has the ability to differentiate between AKI types in patients with cirrhosis. This could improve risk stratification for patients admitted to the hospital with cirrhosis, perhaps leading to early ICU admission, transplant evaluation, and prompt initiation of HRS therapy and early management of AKI. These findings, if confirmed in larger cohorts, could lead to the development of biomarker algorithms to rapidly identify patients with HRS and ATN and accurately predict prognosis.