Prospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Jul 8, 2016; 8(19): 815-824
Published online Jul 8, 2016. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v8.i19.815
Is neutrophil gelatinase associated lipocalin useful in hepatitis C virus infection?
Alessio Strazzulla, Giuseppe Coppolino, Concetta Di Fatta, Francesca Giancotti, Giuseppina D’Onofrio, Maria Concetta Postorino, Maria Mazzitelli, Selma Valerie Mammone, Innocenza Gentile, Laura Rivoli, Eleonora Palella, Tiziana Gravina, Chiara Costa, Vincenzo Pisani, Vincenzo De Maria, Giorgio Settimo Barreca, Nadia Marascio, Alfredo Focà, Giorgio Fuiano, Elio Gulletta, Carlo Torti
Alessio Strazzulla, Maria Concetta Postorino, Maria Mazzitelli, Selma Valerie Mammone, Chiara Costa, Vincenzo Pisani, Carlo Torti, Infectious Diseases Unit, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, “Magna Graecia” University, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Giuseppe Coppolino, Giuseppina D’Onofrio, Nephrology and Dialysis Unit, “Pugliese-Ciaccio” Hospital, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Concetta Di Fatta, Innocenza Gentile, Eleonora Palella, Elio Gulletta, Clinical Pathology Unit, Department of Health Sciences, “Magna Graecia” University, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Francesca Giancotti, Tiziana Gravina, Vincenzo De Maria, Hepatology Unit, “Mater Domini” Teaching Hospital, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Laura Rivoli, Giorgio Fuiano, Nephrology Unit, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, “Magna Graecia” University, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Giorgio Settimo Barreca, Nadia Marascio, Alfredo Focà, Microbiology Unit, Department of Health Sciences, “Magna Graecia” University, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Author contributions: Strazzulla A, Rivoli L and Torti C drafted the article; Coppolino G, Focà A, Fuiano G, Gulletta E and Torti C participated in oversight the study; Di Fatta C made NGAL measurements; Giancotti F, D’Onofrio G, Mazzitelli M, Mammone SV, Gravina T, Costa C, Pisani V, De Maria V and Marascio N were involved in data collection; Postorino MC and Rivoli L performed statistical analysis; Gentile I and Palella E were involved in storing samples; Barreca GS performed microbiological analysis; all authors approved the final version to be published.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the IRB of “Mater Domini” Teaching Hospital in the session of January 2014.
Informed consent statement: All study participants provided written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare that they do not have any conflicts of interest for the content of this paper.
Data sharing statement: There are no additional data available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Alessio Strazzulla, Infectious Diseases Unit, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, “Magna Graecia” University, Unità Operativa Malattie Infettive, Policlinico “Mater Domini”, viale Europa, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy. alessiostrazzulla@yahoo.it
Telephone: +39-961-3647203 Fax: +39-961-3647544
Received: January 26, 2016
Peer-review started: January 27, 2016
First decision: March 23, 2016
Revised: May 22, 2016
Accepted: June 14, 2016
Article in press: June 16, 2016
Published online: July 8, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: For the first time, we evaluated the evolution of neutrophil gelatinase associated lipocalin (NGAL), a novel biomarker of renal impairment, in patients infected by hepatitis C virus before and during treatment with directly acting antivirals (DAAs). In our study, we documented a significant increase of NGAL during the first 12 wk of therapy with DAAs and a correlation of NGAL with both age and estimated glomerular filtration rate before starting treatment. In a context of paucity of information about safety of the new DAAs, we believe that these data are both informative and novel, provoking urgent investigations.