Therefore, the detection and prevention of CKD are important issues in health care. Increasing evidence supports a significant correlation between serum uric acid levels and the development of CKD. A recently published paper reviewed the relationship between hyperuricemia and CKD based on longitudinal observational and interventional studies and raised the possibility of uric acid as a potential therapeutic target to prevent the onset of CKD. As elevated serum uric acid is a proposed risk factor for cardiovascular disease and other established cardiovascular risk factors, such as diabetes, hypertension, and metabolic syndrome, whether serum uric acid is an independent risk factor for the development of CKD or is merely an incidental finding related to the severity of CKD remains unknow. Although one previous meta-analysis reported a positive association between serum uric acid levels and an increased risk of CKD, the evidence was limited due to unexplained, moderate heterogeneity across the included studies. Additionally, possible confounding by other factors needs to be explored to firmly establish the potential role of uric acid in CKD. Therefore, given the recent accumulation of evidence and intervention studies, we conducted a metaanalysis of longitudinal cohort studies to quantify the nature and magnitude of the association between serum uric acid levels and incident CKD and to measure this association according to the study design and population characteristics. Fifteen independent cohort studies reporting 99,205 participants and 3,492 incident cases were identified. Four studies were conducted in Western countries, and 11 studies were conducted in Asian countries. The selected studies were published from 2005 through 2013, and the number of subjects per study ranged from 519 to 18,778. Six studies recruited participants from population registries. Seven study populations were from healthy checkup population, and two study population included factory employees. The mean serum uric acid level for the subjects ranged from 4.0 to 6.9 mg/dL, and their mean age ranged from 40.5 to 74.5 years. Two studies exclusively included men, and four studies included women and men.