Hassan Bukhari, Asim Shaukat, Amir Hayyat Mahes.
Diabetic nephropathy; protein to creatinine ratio as a cost effective diagnostic tool for detection.
Professional Med J Jan ;23(03):302-6.

To determine diagnostic accuracy of spot urine Protein to creatinine ratio for detection of diabetic nephropathy taking 24-hour urinary protein as gold standard. Study Design: cross sectional. Settings: Medical and Radiology department of Allied hospital Faisalabad. Duration: 12-12-2013 to 12-06-2014. Sample size: 134. Material & Methods: It was a cross-sectional study done in Medical Unit I, Allied Hospital Faisalabad. 134 patients with suspicion of diabetic nephropathy were included. 24-hour urine sample collected by instructing patients to begin collection immediately after completion of first voiding in morning and to collect all urine into same container having 5mL of 10% thymol in iso-propanol as a preservative for 24-hours. This was thoroughly mixed, 2mL was taken for evaluation of proteins. P.C ratio was calculated by dividing Urinary Protein concentration by Urinary Creatinine concentration. Results: The mean age of patients was noted as 55.11±6.79 years. There were 62.7% male and 37.3% female patients. Mean PC ratio of the patients was noted as 0.21±0.07. Sensitivity of PC ratio was noted as 95.2%, whereas specificity was 76.5%, PPV 86.8%, NPV 90.7% with diagnostic accuracy of 88.1%. Conclusion: The study results showed that PC ratio is sensitive enough to diagnose diabetic nephropathy instead of 24-hour urinary protein.

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