Urinary liver-type fatty acid-binding protein in clinically healthy elderly cats: Evaluation of its potential to detect IRIS stage 1 chronic kidney disease and borderline proteinuria

Abstract

Background: Urinary liver-type fatty acid-binding protein (uL-FABP) is a promising biomarker to detect early chronic kidney disease (CKD) in cats. Few healthy cats show increased uL-FABP for unknown reasons. Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate uL-FABP in a large healthy elderly cat population comparing cats with and without International Renal Interest Society (IRIS) stage 1 CKD and with and without borderline proteinuria. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. One hundred ninety-six clinically healthy client-owned cats of ≥7 years old were subdivided based on two criteria: (1) having either IRIS stage 1 CKD or no evidence of CKD and (2) having borderline proteinuria or no proteinuria. Urinary L-FABP was measured using a validated commercially available feline L-FABP ELISA. Results: Overall, uL-FABP was detectable in 6/196 (3%) healthy elderly cats. For the first subdivision, nine (5%) cats had IRIS stage 1 CKD, 184 cats had no evidence CKD and three cats were excluded. All cats with IRIS stage 1 CKD had uL-FABP concentrations below the detection limit, whereas 6/184 (3%) cats without IRIS stage 1 CKD had detectable uL-FABP concentrations (median 1.79 ng/ml, range 0.79–3.66 ng/ml). For the second subdivision, 47 (24%) cats had borderline proteinuria, 147 cats had no proteinuria and two cats were excluded. One of the borderline proteinuric cats had a detectable uL-FABP concentration, whereas the other five cats with detectable uL-FABP concentrations were non-proteinuric. Conclusion: With the current assay, the screening potential of uL-FABP as an early biomarker for feline CKD is limited as uL-FABP was rarely detected in clinically healthy elderly cats independently of the presence of either IRIS stage 1 CKD or borderline proteinuria.