Value of Serum Cystatin C in Estimating Renal Function in Children with Non-renal Solid Organ Transplantation

Kidneys not functioning well is a common problem in children who undergo liver or heart transplantation. If this dysfunction is allowed to progress, the kidneys may be damaged irreversibly. Hence, it is important to recognize this early and to monitor it frequently. The tests that are available to do this have several problems. One is serum creatinine level is not very accurate, has many problems and has been shown to overestimate kidney function in children like you with transplantation. It also takes time to increase thus delaying the diagnosis. Another test, the gold standard GFR-renal scan, uses radioisotope, is time consuming, and requires intravenous access, thus is used once a year. Serum cystatin C is a protein that is naturally present in the blood of everyone. This research study tested if measuring serum cystatin C is an accurate way to measure kidney function by comparing it to GFR- renal scan.