SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Med.
Sec. Nephrology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1574945
This article is part of the Research TopicDisparities in Nephrotic Syndrome OutcomesView all 6 articles
Kidney Injury Molecule 1 in the early detection of acute kidney injury - a systematic review and meta-analysis
Provisionally accepted
- Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, Sichuan, China
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Background: Kidney Injury Molecule 1 (KIM-1) is a biomarker of proximal tubular injury that can be used for the early detection of acute kidney injury (AKI). This study was designed to systematically review the relevant literature to assess the role of urinary KIM-1 (uKIM-1) and blood KIM-1 (bKIM-1) in diagnosing adult AKI. Methods: We searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, web of science for literature published until 7 August 2024, using the Quality Assessment Tool for Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS-2). Sensitivity, specificity, and area under the curve (AUC) values from the included studies were combined using stata 18. Results: In total, 41 studies involving 1790 patients were included. The estimated sensitivity of uKIM-1 for diagnosing adult AKI was 0.73 (95% CrI, 0.67-0.78), the specificity was 0.75 (95% CrI, 0.70-0.80), and the AUC was 0.81 (95% CrI 0.77-0.84); while the estimated sensitivity of bKIM-1 for diagnosing AKI was 0.72 (95% CrI 0.65-0.79), specificity was 0.79 (95% CrI, 0.70-0.86), and AUC was 0.81 (95% CrI 0.77-0.84). Conclusion: uKIM-1 and bKIM-1 show potential as biomarkers for predicting AKI in adult patients, demonstrating relatively high sensitivity and specificity. However, the current meta-analysis does not provide sufficient evidence to make definitive conclusions, and further studies and clinical trials are needed to determine the practical utility of uKIM-1 and bKIM-1 in clinical diagnosis.
Keywords: Kidney injury molecule 1, Urinary KIM-1, serum KIM-1, Acute Kidney Injury, Meta-analysis
Received: 11 Feb 2025; Accepted: 19 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Su, Yang, Cheng, Shang, Wang and Shen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hong-Chun Shen, shenhongchun79@163.com
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