Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Optimal patient selection plays a vital role in management of renal tumors with the introduction of nephron-sparing approaches and active surveillance. A reliable and accurate diagnostic biomarker will be a useful adjunct to decision-making. We studied the diagnostic accuracy of urinary aquaporin-1 (uAQP-1), an upcoming urinary biomarker, for renal cell carcinoma. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this prospective biomarker study, urine samples were obtained preoperatively from 36 patients with an imaged renal mass suggestive of RCC and 24 healthy age-matched controls, chosen from among voluntary kidney donors. uAQP-1 concentrations were estimated with a sensitive and specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and normalized by estimation of urinary creatinine. The Mann-Whitney U-test was used to compare differences between any two groups. A receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve was plotted to analyze the diagnostic accuracy of uAQP-1 for RCC. RESULTS: The median uAQP-1 concentration among the cases and controls was 8.78 ng/mg creatinine (interquartile range [IQR]: 5.56-12.67) and 9.52 ng/mg creatinine (IQR: 5.55-12.45), respectively. There was no significant difference in uAQP-1 concentrations between the two groups. ROC analysis showed that, for a cutoff value of 8 ng/mg creatinine, the sensitivity and specificity of uAQP-1 as a diagnostic test were 47.2% and 66.7%, respectively, and area under the curve was 0.52 (95% confidence interval: 0.42-0.62). CONCLUSIONS: uAQP-1 concentrations did not discriminate between healthy individuals and patients with RCC. The results of this study suggest that uAQP-1 may not be a suitable diagnostic biomarker for RCC in the study population.