accuracy of urine calprotectin in the diagnosis of acute kidney injury in neonates: a cross-sectional study

Background: urine calprotectin significantly elevates in acute kidney injury (aki) in adult and pediatric patients. the present study aimed to assess the accuracy of urine calprotectin as a diagnostic marker for (aki) in neonates. methods: this cross-sectional study assessed urine calprotectin in 100 neonates (80 newborns with confirmed aki and 20 healthy ones). random urine calprotectin was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (elisa) and then compared between the two groups. we included the neonates who had received at least 48 h of intravenous fluid and met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. receiver-operating characteristic (roc) curve was used to set a cut-off point for urine calprotectin for the prediction of aki. the overall accuracy and kappa coefficient were used to assess the agreement between the two methods. a p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. results: urine calprotectin levels were not significantly higher in neonates with aki, as compared to those in the healthy ones (146.2 versus 142.4; p=0.1). the results pointed to an optimal cut-off value of 123.5 mg/dl for urine calprotectin with the area under the curve of 0.515 (the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value were obtained at 77.5%, 40%, 83.7% , and 30.7%, respectively). the overall accuracy and kappa agreement coefficient were reported as 70% and 0.15, r (p=0.11). conclusion: as evidenced by the results of the resent study, although urine calprotectin level elevates in aki in neonates, it is not more sensitive than gold standards to predict aki.