Although the recent studies have concerned the pathogenesis and therapeutic strategies of acute kidney injury (AKI), the mortality of AKI is still terribly high, and it is still one of the most important death factors in the intensive care unit. There is no doubt that early verdict of AKI, is good for a more aggressive treatment and can promise an improved prognosis for AKI patients. Serum creatinine level, serving as the gold standard for diagnosis of kidney injury, cannot meet current clinical work in its sensitivity and specificity of diagnosis of early AKI. Over the past decades, researchers worked to find and verify novel AKI biomarkers, including neutrophil gelatinase associated lipocalin, interleukin-18, kidney injury molecule-1 and cystatin-C, which were proved to be the potential reliable predictor of AKI development and prognosis, and were of great importance to the early diagnosis and clinical monitoring of AKI. This paper reviews the main studies on these novel prognostic predictors of AKI over the decades and evaluates their roles and limitations in early diagnosis and clinical prognosis prediction.
Modern medical education faces multiple challenges, and there is a gap between the social needs and the methods of cultivating medical talents. The current undergraduate education in clinical medicine is subject centered, and the traditional model is difficult to cultivate students’ clinical abilities, practical skills, and research thinking effectively. Therefore, West China Hospital/West China School of Medicine of Sichuan University has proposed a new education model of “Four-Early and Three-Entry”, aiming to cultivate students’ professional ethics, clinical abilities, and scientific research innovation abilities through early clinical practice, scientific research participation, and social integration. This article will introduce the practice and preliminary results of the “Four-Early and Three-Entry” model, aiming to provide effective ways to improve the quality of medical undergraduate education and cultivate more comprehensive medical professionals.