Systematic Reviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Nephrol. Jul 6, 2016; 5(4): 378-388
Published online Jul 6, 2016. doi: 10.5527/wjn.v5.i4.378
Measurement of the intestinal permeability in chronic kidney disease
Matty L Terpstra, Ramandeep Singh, Suzanne E Geerlings, Frederike J Bemelman
Matty L Terpstra, Ramandeep Singh, Suzanne E Geerlings, Frederike J Bemelman, Division of Nephrology, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, 1100 DD Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Author contributions: Terpstra ML and Singh R performed the electronic search, all co-authors searched their own personal databases; Terpstra ML and Singh R independently screened all the articles for meeting the inclusion criteria; Bemelman FJ was consulted if there was discussion about inclusion; Terpstra ML extracted all data and wrote the paper under supervision of Geerlings SE and Bemelman FJ.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this manuscript. For this project no foundation or funding was received. For other non-related projects Bemelman FJ received a grant from Astellas Pharma. Geerlings SE is advisory consultant for InfectoPharm about fosfomycin iv.
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: Matty L Terpstra, MD, Division of Nephrology, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Room number A3-273. P.O. Box 22660, 1100 DD Amsterdam, The Netherlands. m.terpstra@amc.nl
Telephone: +31-20-5666135 Fax: +31-20-6972286
Received: February 17, 2016
Peer-review started: February 19, 2016
First decision: March 25, 2016
Revised: April 7, 2016
Accepted: June 14, 2016
Article in press: June 16, 2016
Published online: July 6, 2016
Processing time: 132 Days and 16.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Several methods are currently being used to measure the intestinal permeability, there is however no gold standard. In addition to this, most methods are influenced by renal function. We suggest that preferred methods to assess the intestinal permeability in chronic kidney disease patients could be quantitative PCR for bacterial DNA in blood and D-lactate. Independent of the used method, all studies measuring the intestinal permeability in patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD) reported a significantly increased intestinal permeability. Even though these results should be interpret with caution due to the disadvantages of the applied methods, it seems likely that there is a connection between ESRD and intestinal barrier dysfunction.