Value of Serum Cystatin C in Evaluating Glomerular Filtration Rate in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease: A Meta-Analysis

Objective To evaluate the diagnostic value of Cystatin C（CysC） in glomerular filtration rate （GFR） of chronic kidney disease（CKD） patients. Methods We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library and other databases （1966 to June 2013） to collect studies which evaluated the diagnostic value of CysC in evaluating GFR in patients with CKD.The heterogeneity of included studies was tested by the Cochrane Collaboration's software RevMan 5.0.The Summary Receiver Operating Characteristic （SROC） curve and meta-analysis were performed by Meta-DiSc.Results Total of 14 relevant articles were included in our review, with study subjects involving 2 169 patients.Meta-analysis showed that GFR（cut-off 80~90 mL/min）, the CysC heterogeneity among studies was high（P=0.10, I2=35%）, OR=30.71（21.70,43.46）; SEN=0.873, SPE=0.791; SAUC=0.922 6.Five of the studies which included various stages of GFR（60~90 mL/min）group of meta-analyses showed that CysC had no heterogeneityP=0.71,I2=0.0%,OR=7.05（4.56,10.91）, SEN=0.813,SPE=0.609,SAUC=0.822 6. Conclusion There is significant correlation between GFR and CysC.As for early CKD, CysC has more sensitivity and specificity for estimation of GFR.Further high quality researches on various stage of CKD are still required.