Biomarkers for Clinical Detection and Diagnosis of Acute and Chronic Kidney Disease

Dear Colleagues,

In the nephrological field, we are waiting for new biomarkers to fill the void caused by serum creatinine and urine output, characterized by low sensitivity and specificity, to detect renal damage early on. In recent decades, several studies have improved the knowledge surrounding the physiopathology of several renal diseases, with a better diagnosis and therapeutic management of acute (AKI) and chronic kidney diseases (CKD). AKI, as part of sepsis and related to a high mortality rate, is appropriately treated if precociously revealed. In this context, several biomarkers have been proposed, such as neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) or the product of the two G1 cell-cycle inhibitors: tissue inhibitor metalloproteinase-2 (TIMP-2) and insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 7 (IGFBP7); however, further studies must validate these biomarkers for their use in the clinical practice. Moreover, a precocious detection of AKI is the starting point for preventing the transition from AKI to chronic damage, which is now becoming evident both in clinical and experimental settings, with an irreversible loss of organ function. Inflammation, tubule-interstitial injury, and fibrosis are the main processes characterizing this condition, and a better understanding of these mechanisms associated with the discovery of blood and urinary AKI-to-CKD biomarkers could improve the early identification of AKI patients with a higher risk of CKD progression, representing a new challenge for nephrologists. Recently, new therapeutic strategies involving CKD patients, such as sodium/glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) and mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) antagonists, act not only at renal levels on tubular dysfunction and fibrosis but also on the well-known cross-talk between the kidney and distant organs, such as the heart. Renal prognostic biomarkers, revealing the effects of these drugs, could improve the personalization of the treatment and its outcomes.

This Special Issue aims to present original research (e.g., randomized controlled trials, cohort studies), literature reviews, and meta-analyses, to improve our understanding of renal biomarkers in acute, subacute, and chronic diseases.

Dr. Paolo Monardo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Clinical Medicine is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.