Value of serum cystatin C as a marker of renal function in the early post kidney transplant period.

Management of renal transplant patients requires periodic measurement of renal function especially in early post transplant period. This is usually assessed by measuring the creatinine clearance, but because of its limitations, it is not an ideal marker for assessing the renal function. Serum cystatin C (sCyC) appears to be an endogenous marker of glomerular filtration rate (GFR). To assess the use of sCyC as a marker of renal function in kidney transplant patients, we compared it with serum creatinine (sCr) and 24-hour urine creatinine clearance (CrCl) in the first week post-transplantation. Among 60 patients (62.8% men, 37.2% women) undergoing kidney transplantation (average age: 44.87 +/- 13.37 years), we determined renal function at 1, 3, 5, and 7 days after kidney transplantation using: sCr, sCyC and CrCl in a 24-hours urine specimen. During the first 5 days following transplantation, there was a progressive decline in sCr levels. In the first 5 days, post transplantation we could not find good correlation between CrC and sCyC, and the sCyC increased during these 5 days, but after that in day 7, there was a good correlation between CrC and sCyC which is coinciding with decreasing the dose of steroid (r= .625). Therefore, we recommend using sCyC may be used as a marker of renal function after one-week post kidney transplantation.