Biomarkers of acute kidney injury

Acute kidney injury (AKI) represents a common serious clinical problem. Incidence of AKI is increasing rapidly to epidemic proportions. Development of AKI, especially in intensive care settings, is associated with increased morbidity, mortality, and hospitalization costs.Currently available diagnostic tools are mostly insensitive for early diagnosis. However, prompt diagnosis and risk stratification are necessary for guiding therapy and preventing progression of disease.Finding an early, reliable, suitable, easily reproducible, economical, and accurate biomarker for AKI is a top research priority. In recent years, many urinary and serum proteins have been investigated as possible early markers of AKI and some of them have shown great promise. This topic reviews some of the emerging biomarkers of AKI.