Biomarkers may help in treatment of acute kidney injury

Hospital inpatients who develop an acute kidney injury (AKI) generally fare poorly after being discharged, and have few options for effective treatment. A UW Medicine-led study published recently in American Journal of Kidney Diseases suggests that new tests might improve this narrative.

Hospital inpatients who develop an acute kidney injury (AKI) generally fare poorly after being discharged, and have few options for effective treatment. In their paper, the investigators proposed a way to classify subpopulations of AKI patients with the aim of identifying therapies specific patient populations.

In much the same way that distinct biomarkers inform treatments of subgroups of patients with cancer or asthma, so, too, could blood- and urine-based biomarkers help identify subgroups of patients with AKI, leading to new ideas for treatments, the authors said.

In the study, the researchers retrospectively analyzed 769 patients with AKI and 769 without the condition, and followed them for five years after hospital discharge. The researchers found two molecularly distinct AKI subgroups, or sub-phenotypes, that were associated with differing risk profiles and long-term outcomes.

Patients in one group had higher rates of congestive heart failure, while another group had higher rates of chronic kidney disease and sepsis,researchers said. The patients in the second group also had a 40% higher risk for major adverse kidney events five years later, compared with the first group, he said.

Reference:

Integrated Analysis of Blood and Urine Biomarkers to Identify Acute Kidney Injury Subphenotypes and Associations With Long-term Outcomes,American Journal of Kidney Diseases, DOI 10.1053/j.ajkd.2023.01.449, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272638623005814?dgcid=author