Assessment of urine CCL2 as a potential diagnostic biomarker for acute kidney injury and septic acute kidney injury in intensive care unit patients

Abstract

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a prevalent and serious condition in the intensive care unit (ICU), associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Septic acute kidney injury (SAKI) contributes substantially to AKI cases in the ICU. However, current diagnostic methods have limitations, necessitating the exploration of novel biomarkers. In this study, we investigated the potential of plasma and urine CCL2 levels as diagnostic markers for AKI and SAKI in 216 ICU patients. Our findings revealed significant differences in plasma (p < 0.01) and urine CCL2 (p < 0.0001) levels between AKI and non-AKI patients in the ICU. Notably, urine CCL2 demonstrated promising predictive value for AKI, exhibiting high specificity and sensitivity (AUC = 0.8976; p < 0.0001). Furthermore, we observed higher urine CCL2 levels in SAKI compared to non-septic AKI (p < 0.001) and urine CCL2 could also differentiate SAKI from non-septic AKI (AUC = 0.7597; p < 0.0001). These results suggest that urine CCL2 levels hold promise as early biomarkers for AKI and SAKI, offering valuable insights for timely intervention and improved management of ICU patients.

Keywords:

• Acute kidney injury
• sepsis
• intensive care unit
• biomarker
• urine CCL2

Acknowledgments

None.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This study was approved by the Independent Ethics Committee (IEC) at the First People’s Hospital of Kunshan (Approval No. 2021-03-014-H01-K01). All protocols involving patient information and human samples were reviewed by the IEC and performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and relevant national and institutional guidelines. Written consent was obtained from all participants or their legal representatives prior to their inclusion in this study.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Authors’ contributions

YP, QW, and QQ designed the experiment. YP, QW, and FJ conducted the experiment. YP, QW, FJ, and TT analyzed the data. YP and QQ wrote the article, and all authors approved the final version.

Availability of data and materials

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the 2022 ‘Emergency Medical Star’ Science and Technology Project of Suzhou Medical Association (2022JZ-1) and 2022 Key Project of Jiangsu University Medical Education Collaborative Innovation Fund (JDY2022014).