title: Genetic predisposition to acute kidney injury--a systematic review.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The risk of an individual to develop an acute kidney injury (AKI), or its severity, cannot be reliably predicted by common clinical risk factors. Whether genetic risk factors have an explanatory role poses an interesting question, however. Thus, we conducted a systematic literature review regarding genetic predisposition to AKI or outcome of AKI patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  We searched Ovid SP (MEDLINE) and EMBASE databases and found 4027 references to AKI. Based on titles and abstracts, we approved 37 articles for further analysis. Nine were published only as abstracts, leaving 28 original articles in the final analysis. We extracted the first author, year of publication, study design, clinical setting, number of studied patients, patients with AKI, ethnicity of patients, studied polymorphisms, endpoints, AKI definition, phenotype, significant findings, and data for quality scoring from each article. We summarized the findings and scored the quality of articles.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The articles were quite heterogeneous and of moderate quality (mean 6.4 of 10).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Despite different gene polymorphisms with suggested associations with development or severity or outcome of AKI, definitive conclusions would require replication of associations in independent cohort studies and, preferably a hypothesis-free study design.
authors.affiliation: Intensive Care Medicine, University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland. laura.vilander@helsinki.fi.
authors.forename: Laura M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Vilander
authors.affiliation: Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. mari.kaunisto@helsinki.fi.|Folkhälsan Institute of Genetics, Folkhälsan Research Center, Helsinki, Finland. mari.kaunisto@helsinki.fi.
authors.forename: Mari A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Kaunisto
authors.affiliation: Intensive Care Medicine, University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland. ville.pettila@hus.fi.
authors.forename: Ville
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Pettilä
mesh_terms: D058186:Acute Kidney Injury / Q000235:genetics* / Q000401:mortality*; D016207:Cytokines / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D005819:Genetic Markers / Q000235:genetics; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Q000235:genetics*; D012307:Risk Factors; D015996:Survival Rate
chemical_list: D016207:Cytokines; D005819:Genetic Markers