Evaluation of Early Adjuvant Blood Marker in Acute Kidney Injury Diagnosis

Background: - The acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication in the hospitalized patients. However its diagnosis at the earliest is challenging issue. Current diagnostic criteria for AKI poorlyrecognize early renal dysfunction causing delayed diagnosis. Objective: Evaluation of the serum cystatin C along with routine kidney function tests such as urea, creatinine, sodium and potassium was done for earliest and effective marker for early diagnosis of AKI. Method: In this retrospective study of 100 patients diagnosed on basis of clinical findings to have AKI, by the physician were estimated for serum cystatin C, creatinine, blood urea, serum sodium and potassium within 12 hrs. and results were compared with 100 normal healthy group. Results: In this study 56% of patients of AKI had normal levels of serum creatinine within 12 hrs, while all patients (100%) had elevated serum cystatin C within 12 hrs. Hence, cystatin C in blood is an early marker for AKI than creatinine. Conclusion: This study support the findings that cystatin C as an earliest marker and should be included in the KFT panel routinely done in hospital settings to diagnose AKI in early stage.