Urinary neutrophil gelatinase-associated Lipocalin in children with recurrent urinary tract infections in North-eastern Romania

Urinary Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin (uNGAL) is currently proposed as an improved diagnostic tool for urinary tract infection (UTI).Both normal and pathological standardized values are lacking.There is some evidence that children with r ecurrent UTI may have lower uNGAL values, thus promoting it as a prognostic biomarker.Aim: To compare baseline uNGAL values in patients with recurrent UTI to controls without history of UTI. Materials and methods: Patients and/or their caretakers signed an informed consent prior to participation.Recurrent UTI (rUTI) was defined as history of at least 2 UTI episodes in the last 6 months or 3 in the last year, confirmed by positive urine culture.The correspondent control group had no history of UTI.Obtained urine samples were frozen and kept until uNGAL assay measurement was performed as per the manufacturer's recomme ndations.Data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics (version 29.0.20 (20)).Results: We found a significant difference in uNGAL values between the rUTI group and the control group (p=0.01),AUC = 0.815, cutoff = 5.27 ng/mL (TPR =1, FPR =0.3).uNGAL values in the rUTI group were not correlated with age (Pearson r = 0.243, p =0.423).uNGAL values were higher in the rUTI group.Conclusions: Patients with history rUTI have higher uNGAL values than those without history of UTI.uNGAL does not seem to be a protective factor and low values do not seem to be a predictive diagnostic tool for pediatr ic UTI.Further studies should take into consideration the patient's history of UTI regarding cut -off values.