Serum chemokine IL-8 acts as a biomarker for identifying COVID-19-associated persistent severe acute kidney injury

Abstract

Objectives

Persistent severe acute kidney injury (PS-AKI) is associated with poor clinical outcomes. Our study attempted to evaluate the diagnostic value of chemokines for early-stage PS-AKI prediction.

Methods

According to the KDIGO criteria, 115 COVID-19 patients diagnosed with stage 2/3 AKI were recruited from the intensive care unit between December 2022 and February 2023. Primary clinical outcomes included detecting PS-AKI in the first week (≥ KDIGO stage 2 ≥ 72 h). Cytometric Bead Array was used to detect patient plasma levels (interleukin-8 (IL-8), C-C chemokine ligand 5 (CCL5), chemokine (C-X-C Motif) ligand 9 (CXCL9), and interferon-inducible protein 10 (IP-10)) of chemokines within 24 h of enrollment.

Results

Of the 115 COVID-19 patients with stage 2/3 AKI, 27 were diagnosed with PS-AKI. Among the four measured chemokines, only the IL-8 level was significantly elevated in the PS-AKI group than in the Non-PS-AKI group. IL-8 was more effective as a biomarker while predicting PS-AKI with an area under the curve of 0.769 (0.675-0.863). This was superior to other biomarkers related to AKI, including serum creatinine. Moreover, plasma IL-8 levels of >32.2 pg/ml on admission could predict PS-AKI risk (sensitivity = 92.6%, specificity = 51.1%). Additionally, the IL-8 level was associated with total protein and IL-6 levels.

Conclusion

Plasma IL-8 is a promising marker for the early identification of PS-AKI among COVID-19 patients. These findings should be validated in further studies with a larger sample size.

Keywords:

• covid-19
• acute kidney injury
• IL-8
• IP-10
• biomarker

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the Ethics committee of Zhongda Hospital, Southeast University (Approval NO: 2020ZDSYLL287-P01), and written informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.