Aim: There is no commercially available urinary cystatin-C (u-CYSC) test in the market. Therefore, we optimized and validated an automated immune turbidimetric test for u-CYSC measurements and investigated u-CYSC concentrations in acute and chronic diseases which might lead to renal tubular disorders.
Materials & methods: A particle-enhanced immune turbidimetric assay was adapted and validated on a Cobas 8000/c502 analyzer. Urine samples of different patient groups were also analyzed.
Results: Our method showed excellent analytical performance. U-CYSC/u-creatinine (u-CREAT) was higher in sepsis-related acute kidney injury group (p < 0.001) compared with controls and to patients with chronic hypertension and Type 2 diabetes.
Conclusion: We validated a fast, sensitive, fully automated u-CYSC assay which is ideal for routine use and might be a potential complementary laboratory test to evaluate renal tubular function.
Keywords: acute kidney injury; cystatin-C; tubular damage; turbidimetry; urine; validation.