Raman Spectral Characterization of Urine for Rapid Diagnosis of Acute Kidney Injury

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common syndrome characterized by various etiologies and pathophysiologic processes that deteriorate kidney function. The aim of this study is to identify potential biomarkers in the urine of non-acute kidney injury (non-AKI) and AKI patients through Raman spectroscopy (RS) to predict the advancement in complications and kidney failure. Selected spectral regions containing prominent peaks of renal biomarkers were subjected to partial least squares linear discriminant analysis (PLS-LDA). This discriminant analysis classified the AKI patients from non-AKI subjects with a sensitivity and specificity of 97% and 100%, respectively. In this study, the RS measurements of urine specimens demonstrated that AKI had significantly higher nitrogenous compounds, porphyrin, tryptophan and neopterin when compared with non-AKI. This study’s specific spectral information can be used to design an in vivo RS approach for the detection of AKI diseases.