Elevated Urinary Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin Is a Biomarker for Lupus Nephritis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Table 1

Basic characteristics of the included studies in the meta-analysis.

First author’s name, year [reference]	Design	Number of patients	Region	Population type	Mean age (years)	Women (%)	Ethnicity (%)	NGAL assay	Pathological classification criteria	QUADAS-2 score
Brunner, 2006 [20]	CS	35	USA	Children	11.6 (4)^a	32 (91)	—	ELISA (Denmark)^d	WHO	16
Pitashny, 2007 [21]	CS	70	USA	Adults	35 (28-44)^a	58 (83)	African American (41), Hispanic (56), others (3)	ELISA (Denmark)^d	WHO	15
Hinze, 2009 [22]	PC	111	USA	Children	^b	89 (90)	White (49.5), African American (32.4), Asian (12.6), Hispanic (11.7)	ELISA (Denmark)^d	WHO	14
Rubinstein, 2010 [23]	PC	107	USA (Bronx)	Adults	41 (12)^a	97 (91)	Hispanic (47), Black (46), White (2), others (4)	ELISA (Denmark)^d	WHO	12
Rubinstein, 2010 [23]	PC	35	UK (London)	Adults	41 (13)^a	34 (97)	White (49), Black (23), Asian (14), Southeast Asian (9), others (6)	ELISA (Denmark)^d	WHO	12
Kiani, 2012 [24]	PC	107	USA	Adults	41^c	97 (91)	Black (51), White (36), Asian (4), Hispanic (4), others (5)	ELISA (R&D)^e	ISN/RPS	13
Alharazy, 2013 [25]	CS	100	Malaysia	Adults	^b	92 (92)	Malay (41), Chinese (55), Indian (4)	ELISA (R&D)^e	WHO	12
Hammad, 2013 [26]	CS	33	Egypt	Children	10 (8-12)^a	25 (76)	—	ELISA (R&D)^e	ISN/RPS	15
Sharifipour, 2013 [27]	CS	52	Iran	Adults	^b	44 (85)	—	ELISA (R&D)^e	WHO	12
Torres-Salido, 2014 [29]	CS	123	Spain	Adults	33 (27-42)^a	109 (89)	White (93), Hispanic (2), African American (2), others (2)	ELISA (Denmark)^d	ISN/RPS	13
Torres-Salido, 2014 [29]	PC	45	Spain	Adults	31 (23-41)^a	39 (87)	White (89), Hispanic (7), African American (2), others (2)	ELISA (Denmark)^d	ISN/RPS	13
Watson, 2014 [30]	PC	64	UK	Children	11.3 (8.0-13.3)^a	51 (80)	Caucasian (50), Black African (14), Indian (9), Caribbean (8), Asian (6), Bangladeshi (4), mixed race (3), Chinese (2), others (2)	Architect assay^f	—	14
Maeda-Hori, 2014 [28]	PC	64	Japan	Adults	^b	46 (72)	Asian (100)	ELISA (R&D)^e	ISN/RPS	16
Elewa, 2015 [31]	PC	30	Egypt	Adults	^b	29 (97)	—	ELISA (Boster)^g	—	15
Susianti, 2015 [32]	CS	50	Indonesia	Adults	^b	48 (96)	Javanese (92), Madurese (8)	ELISA (RayBiotech)^h	ISN/RPS	10
Tawfik, 2015 [33]	CS	35	Egypt	Adults	30 (24-37)^a	31 (89)	—	ELISA (R&D)^e	WHO	13
Youssef, 2015 [34]	CS	44	Egypt	Adults	^b	35 (80)	—	ELISA^i	—	11
Satirapoj, 2017 [35]	PC	68	UK	Adults	^b	66 (97)	—	ELISA (R&D)^e	ISN/RPS	14
El Shahawy, 2018 [36]	PC	70	Egypt	Adults	^b	67 (96)	—	ELISA (R&D)^e	ISN/RPS	10
Gómez-Puerta, 2018 [37]	CS	120	Colombia	Adults	^b	105 (88)	Mestizo (76.7), Afro Latin-American (21.6), Caucasian (1), Colombian Amerindian (1)	ELISA (R&D)^e	WHO	10
Li, 2019 [38]	PC	90	China; Taiwan	Adults	^b	75 (83)	—	ELISA (R&D)^j	WHO	15

NGAL: neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin; CS: cross-sectional study; PC: prospective cohort study; USA: the United States of America; UK: the United Kingdom; ELISA: enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; WHO: World Health Organization classification system; ISN/RPS: the International Society of Nephrology/Renal Pathology Society classification system. QUADAS-2: quality assessment tool for diagnostic accuracy studies 2; “yes” or “low concern”: 1 score; “no” or “high concern” or “unclear”: 0 score. ^aMedian (interquartile range (IQR)). ^b. ^cMedian. (Denmark)^d: Bioporto, Gentofte, Denmark. (R&D)^e: R&D Systems, Minneapolis, MN, USA. Architect assay^f: Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, IL, USA. (Boster)^g: Boster Biological Technology Co., Ltd. (RayBiotech)^h: ELHLipocalin2-001, RayBiotech® Inc., Norcross, GA, USA. ELISAⁱ: BioVendor, Asheville, NC28806, USA; (R&D)^j: Quantikine: R&D Systems, Inc.