ArticleClinical biochemistry2022
Early prediction of COVID-19-associated acute kidney injury: Are serum NGAL and serum Cystatin C levels better than serum creatinine?
Article in Clinical biochemistry, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Global geographic and socioeconomic disparities in COVID-associated acute kidney injury: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of global health · 2025Pooled it
- Comparative accuracy of biomarkers for the prediction of hospital-acquired acute kidney injury: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Critical care (London, England) · 2022Pooled it
- Prognostic Performance of Cystatin C in COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Plasma VGF as a Predictive Biomarker for Early Acute Kidney Injury in Critically Ill Elderly Patients:Saudi medical journal · 2026Article
- Kidney Stone Disease: Epigenetic Dysregulation in Homocystinuria and Mitochondrial Sulfur Trans-Sulfuration Ablation Driven by COVID-19 Pathophysiology.Biomolecules · 2025Review
- Can Biomarkers Predict Kidney Function Recovery and Mortality in Patients with Critical COVID-19 and Acute Kidney Injury?Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin as a predictive biomarker of acute kidney injury in COVID-19 infection: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2025Article
- COVID-19 Infection in Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease and Chronic Kidney Disease Patients: Progression of Kidney Disease.Biomedicines · 2024Article
- Organ-Dysfunction Markers in Mild-to-Moderate COVID-19 Convalescents.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- Plasma neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin independently predicts dialysis need and mortality in critical COVID-19.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- IL-6 and SAA-Strong Predictors for the Outcome in COVID-19 CKD Patients.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Article
- Evaluation of Plasma Biomarkers to Predict Major Adverse Kidney Events in Hospitalized Patients With COVID-19.American journal of kidney diseases : the official journal of the National Kidney Foundation · 2023Article
- Serum and Urinary Biomarkers in COVID-19 Patients with or without Baseline Chronic Kidney Disease.Journal of personalized medicine · 2023Article
- Acute kidney injury in critical COVID-19 patients: usefulness of urinary biomarkers and kidney proximal tubulopathy.Renal failure · 2023Article
- Role of increased neutrophil extracellular trap formation on acute kidney injury in COVID-19 patients.Frontiers in immunology · 2023Article
- The role of kidney injury biomarkers in COVID-19.Renal failure · 2022Review
- Plasma neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL): A candidate biomarker to detect early acute kidney injury (AKI) for at-risk intensive care admissions.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2022Article
- Development and validation of a nomogram for the early prediction of acute kidney injury in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 8 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCoronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is associated with a high risk of acute kidney injury (AKI), often requiring renal replacement therapy (RRT). Serum Cystatin C (sCysC) and serum Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin (sNGAL) are emerging biomarkers for kidney injury, and were suggested to be superior to serum creatinine (sCr) in several clinical settings. Moreover, elevated sCysC is associated with disease severity and mortality in COVID-19. We aimed to assess the utility of sCysC and sNGAL for predicting COVID-19-associated AKI, need for RRT, and need for intensive care unit (ICU) admission, when measured at presentation to the emergency department (ED).
methodsPatients presenting to the ED with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 were included. The primary outcome was development of COVID-19-associated AKI, while the secondary outcomes were need for RRT and ICU admission.
resultsAmong 52 COVID-19 patients, 22 (42.3%) developed AKI with 8/22 (36.4%) requiring RRT. Both sCr and sCysC demonstrated excellent performance for predicting AKI (AUC, 0.86 and 0.87, respectively) and need for RRT (AUC, 0.94 and 0.95, respectively). sNGAL displayed acceptable performance for predicting AKI (AUC, 0.81) and need for RRT (AUC, 0.87).
conclusionsSCr and sCysC measured at ED presentation are both highly accurate predictors of AKI and need for RRT, whereas sNGAL demonstrated adequate diagnostic performance. While sCyC was previously shown to be superior to sCr as a diagnostic biomarker of kidney injury in certain etiologies, our findings demonstrate that sCr is comparable to sCyC in the context of predicting COVID-19-associated AKI. Given the high sensitivity of these biomarkers for predicting the need for RRT, and as sCysC is associated with mortality in COVID-19 patients, we recommend their measurement for enabling risk stratification and early intervention.
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