LCN2 and chronic kidney disease: When tertiles of plasma NGAL levels were used instead of plasma NGAL as continuous variable, the highest tertile (T3) of plasma NGAL was consistently significantly associated with the risk of new-onset CKD (as composite outcome and individually by eGFR < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2) after adjustment for confounding variables (Table 2A,B, Model 4, HR per doubling 1.51 [1.16–1.96], p = 0.002 (composite) and 2.55 [1.60–4.06], p < 0.001 (eGFR)), but again vanished after additional adjustment for baseline eGFR (all p > 0.05).