ASSESSMENT OF URINARY KIM-1 AS RENAL INJURY MARKER IN CHRONIC KIDNEY DISEASE PATIENTS.

Background: For the identification of kidney damage and chronic kidney disease stages there are certain biomarkers. Usually blood indicators are used for the diagnosis particularly creatinine & urea requiring frequent blood sampling from the patients already facing anemia, use of these biomarkers are under high debate because of many affecting factors and cofounders. New, noninvasive more reliable markers are other consideration. Kidney Injury Molecule (KIM-1) is one of such recently reported protein identified in direct relation to renal parenchyma damage and a part of protein is excreted in urine too that is normally absent in urine samples. Objective: The present study was planned to determine whether urinary KIM-1 level act as a better and noble biomarker of kidney functions in comparison with conventional GFR, creatinine and others in different stages of chronic kidney disease. Methodology: The cross-sectional study was conducted for the period of one year. Urine and blood samples were collected from 100 CKD patients of different stages. Urinary KIM-1 protein was detected by ELISA. The data were statistical analyzed using SPSS Version 17 at chosen level of significance p<0.05. Results: The 100 partakers mean age was 50 years comprising of 45% male gender presented with different comorbidities including diabetes mellitus (36%), hypertension (66%), smoking (15%) categorized into CKD stages as stage 1 (0%), 2 (10%), 3 (25%), 4 (42%), 5 (23%) respectively. Our data showed strong relationship between kidney damage and urinary KIM-1 excretion with a correlation of -0.75 (p<0.01) for stage 2, -0.6 (p<0.04) for stage 3, -0.3 (p<0.06) for stage 4, -0.7 (p<0.05) for stage 5 as calculated between baseline GFR &KIM 1. Conclusion:KIM-1 can be used effectively to monitor the renal injury in CKD patients through urinary samples rather than taking blood samples frequently.