Marianne Schmid, Deepansh Dalela, Rana Tahbaz, Jessica Langetepe, Marco Randazzo, Roland Dahlem, Margit Fisch, Quoc-Dien Trinh, Felix K-H Chun Marianne Schmid, Deepansh Dalela, Quoc-Dien Trinh, Center for Surgery and Public Health and Division of Urologic Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, United States Marianne Schmid, Rana Tahbaz, Jessica Langetepe, Roland Dahlem, Margit Fisch, Felix K-H Chun, Department of Urology, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20246 Hamburg, Germany Deepansh Dalela, Center for Outcomes Research, Analytics and Evaluation, Vattikuti Urology Institute, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, MI 48202, United States Marco Randazzo, Department of Urology, Cantonal Hospital Aarau, 5000 Aarau, Switzerland Author contributions: All authors of this paper have substantially participated in the planning, execution, and data interpretation of the study; in addition, they have written, read and approved the final version submitted; all the authors contributed to the study concept, design, acquisition, interpretation, drafting, critically revision for important intellectual content of the manuscript. Conlict-of-interest: The authors have no conlict of interest. Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Correspondence to: Felix K-H Chun, MD, Associate Professor of Urology, Department of Urology, University Hospital Hamburg- Eppendorf, Martinistrasse 52, 20246 Hamburg, Germany. chun@uke.de Telephone: +49-40-741053486 Received: July 16, 2014 Peer-review started: July 17, 2014 First decision: August 14, 2014 Revised: December 30, 2014 Accepted: January 15, 2015 Article in press: January 19, 2015 Published online: May 6, 2015 Abstract Patients undergoing urologic surgery are at risk of acute kidney injury (AKI) and consequently long- term deterioration in renal function. AKI is further associated with signiicantly higher odds of perioperative complications, prolonged hospital stay, higher mortality and costs. Therefore, better awareness and detection of AKI, as well as identiication of AKI determinants in the urological surgery setting is warranted to pre-empt and mitigate further deterioration of renal function in patients at special risk. New consensus criteria provide precise definitions of diagnosis and description of the severity of AKI. However, they rely on serum creatinine (SCr), which is known to be an inaccurate marker of early changes in renal function. Therefore, several new urinary and serum biomarkers promise to address the gap associated with the use of SCr. Novel biomarkers may complement SCr measurement or most likely improve the diagnostic accuracy of AKI when used in combinations. However, novel biomarkers have to prove their clinical applicability, accuracy, and cost effectiveness prior to implementation into clinical practice. Most preferably, novel biomarkers should help to positively improve a patient’s long-term renal functional outcomes. The purpose of this review is to discuss currently available biomarkers and to review their clinical evidence within urologic surgery settings. Key words: Acute kidney injury; Urology; Outcome; Renal function; Biomarker; Surgery © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved. Core tip: Patients undergoing renal surgery represent a unique population at risk of acute kidney injury (AKI). AKI is known to be associated with adverse perioperative REVIEW 160 May 6, 2015|Volume 4|Issue 2| WJN|www.wjgnet.com Novel biomarkers of acute kidney injury: Evaluation and evidence in urologic surgery World Journal of Nephrology WJN Submit a Manuscript: http://www.wjgnet.com/esps/ Help Desk: http://www.wjgnet.com/esps/helpdesk.aspx DOI: 10.5527/wjn.v4.i2.160 World J Nephrol 2015 May 6; 4(2): 160-168 ISSN 2220-6124 (online) © 2015 Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.