Biomarkers for Diagnosis, Prognosis and Intervention in Acute Kidney Injury.

Biomarkers for acute kidney injury (AKI) can be used for diagnosis and prognosis and to guide therapy. With no pharmacologic therapy clinically available for the treatment of AKI, prevention and early detection are of paramount importance. Despite the initial enthusiasm for biomarker use when it was first introduced in the literature, published studies' results have shown variability in biomarker performance. The following chapter will discuss what our expectations of AKI biomarkers should be and how they can be currently used for a variety of clinical purposes.