RESUMEN
Background: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a sudden onset of kidney failure or kidney damage that happens within a few hours or a few days and can also affect other organs such as brain, heart and the lungs. Hence early diagnosis and intervention is needed to improve the outcome of the children. In these studies this objective was to determine if cystatin C is an early marker indicative of renal dysfunction in critically ill children and to determine if Cystatin C can detect Acute kidney injury earlier than serum creatinine.Methods: This prospective cohort study was undertaken in PICU at Jubilee Mission Medical College from December 2016- May 2018. Blood samples were collected from 34 critically ill children for serum creatinine estimation at 0,24 and 48 hours of admission and serum and urine were collected for cystatin C estimation at admission. Children were categorized into AKI and NON-AKI based on pRIFLE criteria. Comparison of cystatin C values with serum creatinine was performed and Statistical analysis was done using IBM SPSS version 20.Results: A total of 34 critically ill children were enrolled in this study, out of which 12 children progressed to AKI during the course of illness according to modified Pediatric Risk, Injury, Failure, Loss, End Stage Renal Disease (pRIFLE) criteria. We found a strong positive correlation between cystatin C at 0 hours and serum creatinine at 48 hours among AKI groups.Conclusions: Serum and Urine cystatin C are early markers to diagnose AKI in critically ill children. Serum cystatin C is more sensitive than urine cystatin C for the diagnosis of AKI.