Is morning urinary protein-to-creatinine ratio a reliable estimator of 24-hour proteinuria in patients with kidney diseases?

• Main Authors: Ležaić Višnja, Ristić Stojanka, Dopsaj Violeta, Marinković Jelena
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Serbian Medical Society 2010-01-01
• Series: Srpski Arhiv za Celokupno Lekarstvo
• Subjects: proteinuria; spot morning urine; different kidney diseases
• Online Access: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0370-8179/2010/0370-81791012726L.pdf

Introduction. Proteinuria is the most frequent marker of kidney damage. Although 24-hour urinary proteinuria is the gold standard, the measurement of proteinuria from albumin urinary creatinine ratio is proposed as much useful metod. Objective. To evaluate the accuracy of urine protein-to-creatinine (P/Cr) ratio in morning urine specimens as compared with 24-hour total protein excretion for the measurement of proteinuria in patients with different kidney diseases and different renal function levels. Methods. Proteinuria in the studied patients was assessed by 24-hour protein excretion (24-hour PRT) and spot urine P/Cr ratio. The analysis of concordance between 24-hour PRT and P/ Cr was carried out using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), paired t-test and Bland-Altman plots. The discriminant cutoff values for spot urine P/Cr ratio in predicting 24-hour protein „threshold” excretion were determined using receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC), as well as sensitivity and specificity. Results. A total of 303 patients were included in the study. The concordance between 24-hour PRT and P/Cr ratio was excellent (ICC 0.931). Systematic overestimation of PRT by urinary P/ Cr ratio was disclosed (mean difference 0.138, p=0.011). The P/ Cr of 0.25 (sensitivity 0.90; specificity 0.96), 0.66 (1.00; 0.91) and 2.55 (1.0; 0.97) g/g reliably predicted 24-hour urine total protein equivalent „thresholds” at 0.2, 1.0 and 3.5 g/day. The chronic renal failure group independently positively influenced the difference between 24-hour PRT and P/Cr. It means the lower the kidney function the higher is the difference between the two proteinuria measurements. Conclusion. This study supports the recommendation of using spot urine P/Cr ratio in proteinuria screening in patients with different kidney diseases. The obtained results indicated better agreement between morning P/Cr and 24-hour PRT in patients with lower proteinuria and better kidney function.