Urinary Human Kidney Injury Molecule-1 (hKIM-1) Is Not Increased in Patients with Renal Cell Carcinoma.

Human Kidney Injury Molecule-1 (hKIM-1) was proposed as urinary biomarker of renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The aim of the study was to validate urinary hKIM-1 as a biomarker of RCC.

Forty-six participants were enrolled into the study, including 30 patients with clear-cell or papillary RCC and 16 matched patients in the comparison group. Preoperative urinary hKIM-1 levels were measured using commercially available ELISA kit and normalized to urinary creatinine levels.

The concentrations of urinary hKIM-1 normalized to urinary creatinine in patients with RCC and comparison group did not differ significantly (1.35 vs. 1.32 ng/mg creatinine, p=.25). There was also no difference in urinary hKIM-1 concentration regarding stage or grade of renal cancer. Additional analysis of patients without chronic kidney disease (defined as eGFR ≥60mL/min/1.73m²) also did not reveal significant difference in urinary hKIM-1 concentrations between the groups (1.54 vs. 1.37; p=.47).

Results of our study do not confirm recent suggestions that urinary hKIM-1 may be a biomarker of RCC.

Urology journal. 2020 Oct 01 [Epub ahead of print]

Lukasz Bialek, Slawomir Poletajew, Michal Niemczyk, Katarzyna Czerwinska, Mateusz Nowak, Anna Sadowska, Tomasz Borkowski, Piotr Radziszewski, Jakub Dobruch, Piotr Kryst

First Department of Urology, Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education, Warsaw, Poland. ., Second Department of Urology, Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education, Warsaw, Poland. ., Department of General, Oncological and Functional Urology, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland First Department of Urology, Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education, Warsaw, Poland. ., Department of Transplantation Medicine, Nephrology and Internal Diseases, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland. ., Department of Urology, Tarnów, Poland. ., Department of Transplantation Medicine, Nephrology and Internal Diseases, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland. ., Department of Transplantation Medicine, Nephrology and Internal Diseases, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland. ., Department of General, Oncological and Functional Urology, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland First Department of Urology, Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education, Warsaw, Poland. ., First Department of Urology, Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education, Warsaw, Poland. ., Second Department of Urology, Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education, Warsaw, Poland. .