This article is part of the supplement: 51st Annual Meeting of the Society for Research into Hydrocephalus and Spina Bifida .

Oral presentation

Cystatin C: a potentially useful marker for identifying individuals with spina bifida and early renal insufficiency

Eric Levey¹ , Susan Demetrides¹ and Yegappan Lakshmanan²

¹  Keelty Center for Spina Bifida, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

²  Urology, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

author email corresponding author email

from 51^st Annual Meeting of the Society for Research into Hydrocephalus and Spina Bifida
Heidelberg, Germany. 27–30 June 2007

Cerebrospinal Fluid Research 2007, 4(Suppl 1):S10doi:10.1186/1743-8454-4-S1-S10

Published:	20 December 2007

First paragraph (this article has no abstract)

Individuals with spina bifida (SB) are at risk for deterioration of their upper urinary tracts due to neurogenic bladder and subsequent progressive chronic renal insufficiency (CRI). Serum creatinine (SCr) is the most widely used marker to assess renal function and to estimate glomerular filtration rate (GFR), although it has significant limitations. SCr is dependent on age, height, gender and muscle mass and has been shown to be an unreliable marker of renal function in SB. Cystatin C (CyC) is a cysteine proteinase inhibitor of low molecular weight, produced at a constant rate by all nucleated cells, freely filtered at the glomerulus, and not secreted or reabsorbed at the renal tubule. CyC is independent of age, height, and gender and is believed to be independent of muscle mass. Over the past several years, serum CyC has been shown to be a better marker of renal function and GFR than SCr (using the Schwartz formula) in children. One study by Pham-Huy in 2003 showed that CyC was much better correlated with GFR than SCr in children with SB.