An Early Diagnostic Nano Method for Chronic Kidney Disease Using Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is a common cause of death in the United States, often attributed to late diagnosis. In many cases, CKD develops without any symptoms and progresses into renal failure. Thus, early detection methods are important to starting treatments. Currently clinical diagnosis of CKD depends on the patients' Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR), which directly involves the detection of patient's creatinine concentration in their blood samples. However, the clinical method is slow, costly, and requires laboratory work. To provide better solutions for this clinical problem, in this innovative research, a novel nano-analysis method has been explored through Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) with the use of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs). This nano-analysis method has the advantages of simplicity, low cost, speed, high sensitivities and the potential to be turned into a point of care device. In this project, we also include the analysis of another biomarker of CKD, cystatin-c, increasing the accuracy of GFR estimation equations. We have demonstrated this new nano analysis method with synthetic blood samples. Results showed SERS has potential for use of a screening method of CKD. We demonstrated detection of creatinine at ∼1mg/dL with average error of 3.5% and detection of cystatin-c at ∼1mg/L with an average error of 16%.