European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Background
Diabetic nephropathy is a major end stage kidney disease and its timely diagnosis helps in combating the morbidity and mortality associated with it, thereby improving the quality of the patients suffering from the condition. Though identification of microalbuminuria has long been used to diagnose the nephropathy among diabetics, there has always a need for sensitive and specific biomarker that could predict the susceptibility of the diabetic patients to develop nephropathy much ahead of the onset of microalbuminuria.
Methods
A prospective study was conducted among 125 diabetic patients at various levels of nephropathy like the normoalbuminuric, microalbuminuric and macroalbuminuric patients and 45 healthy controls based on the Joint Committee of Diabetic Nephropathy Classification. A detailed history, clinical characteristics, duration of illness and other baseline investigations along with urinary podocin, urine nephrin, serum carboxy-methyl lysine levels, glycated albumin, glycaemic control, lipid profile were analyzed among the various nephropathy stages and compared with the controls.