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Reduced urinary excretion of neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin as a risk factor for recurrence of febrile urinary tract infection in children

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Abstract

Background

This study aimed to test the hypothesis that reduced urinary excretions of neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) predispose children to recurrence of febrile urinary tract infection (fUTI).

Methods

Subjects were 38 children diagnosed with fUTI. To examine risk factors for recurrence of fUTI, the subjects were divided into a non-recurrent group and a recurrent group according to the presence or absence of fUTI over 3 years since the first episode. We measured the urinary NGAL levels in patients with fUTI at the non-infected stage in addition to age-matched healthy control children.

Results

In a multiple logistic regression analysis, significant differences between the groups were not observed for age, sex, the prevalence of kidney scarring and bladder bowel dysfunction, urinary β2-microglobulin/creatinine (Cr) level, and serum levels of Cr and Cystatin C, while the recurrent group had significantly more cases with grade III or higher vesicoureteral reflux (p < 0.01). Furthermore, the urinary NGAL/Cr in the recurrent group (median, 3.60 μg/gCr) was significantly lower than that in the non-recurrent group (median, 16.47 μg/gCr; p < 0.01), and age-matched healthy control children (median, 14.14 μg/gCr; p < 0.05). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of NGAL/Cr was 0.86 for predicting recurrence of fUTI. A cut-off value of 11.59 μg/gCr had the best accuracy to predict recurrent fUTI yielding a specificity of 78% and a sensitivity of 93%.

Conclusions

Reduced levels of urinary NGAL, which protects against urinary infection, are a risk factor for recurrence of fUTI and could serve as a biomarker.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Edanz Group (https://en-author-services.edanzgroup.com/ac) for editing a draft of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, Kansai Medical University, 2-5-1 Shin-machi, Hirakata, Osaka, 5731010, Japan

    Sohsaku Yamanouchi, Takahisa Kimata, Yuko Akagawa, Shohei Akagawa, Jiro Kino, Shoji Tsuji & Kazunari Kaneko

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  1. Sohsaku Yamanouchi
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  2. Takahisa Kimata
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  3. Yuko Akagawa
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  4. Shohei Akagawa
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Correspondence to Kazunari Kaneko.

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Ethics approval and consent to participate

This study was performed with the approval of the Kansai Medical University ethics committee (no. 1518) in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors. Informed consent was obtained from the parents of all individual participants included in the study.

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Yamanouchi, S., Kimata, T., Akagawa, Y. et al. Reduced urinary excretion of neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin as a risk factor for recurrence of febrile urinary tract infection in children. Pediatr Nephrol 36, 1473–1479 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00467-020-04863-2

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