LCN2 and diabetes mellitus: A large number of studies have shown that the NGAL level in blood and urine is significantly higher in patients with NADKD than in healthy controls and/or in patients with DM, suggesting that NGAL in blood and urine is helpful for early diagnosis, disease stage, and prognosis evaluation of NADKD (13, 20, 39, 40, 43, 45, 52, 58–60).