Urinary Podocin as an Early Prognostic Indicator of Renal Injury in Diabetic Nephropathy

The development of diabetic nephropathy demands an early detection aiming to decrease the incidence of end-stage renal incidence. Podocyte injury is an essential element in diabetic renal disease occurrence and progression. The researchers in their recent study published in the Journal of the associations of Physicians of India attempted to identify podocyte markers in the urine of patients with and without overt diabetic nephropathy, in comparison with controls to diagnose early podocyte injury.

The study included

Type 2 Diabetic individuals

• 45 of them having normoalbuminuria,
• 40 patients with microalbuminuria and
• 45 nondiabetic healthy controls

Urinary podocin quantification was done among all these patients and compared among the different groups of study, along with other parameters. The study found that fasting blood sugar, post prandial sugar, glycosylated hemoglobin, triglyceride levels, and the duration of diabetes along with systolic and diastolic blood pressure, body mass index, all seemed to be strong risk factors for the diabetic kidney disease progression. The glomerular filtration rate showed a significant negative correlation with the levels of podocin excreted in urine whereas urinary podocin positively correlated with the fasting blood sugar, post prandial sugar, glycosylated hemoglobin, triglyceride levels, and the duration of diabetes along with systolic and diastolic blood pressure, body mass index, microalbumin and urine albumin-creatinine ratio. so it was concluded that urinary podocin can serve as an early marker for diabetic nephropathy as well as a marker of disease progression and severity among patients with Type 2 Diabetes. The standard risk factors have to be identified early and controlled in order to slow down the progression of diabetic kidney disease.

Reference: Kishore Kondapi, Santhi Silambanan, Swathy Moorthy, N Lakshmana Kumar "A Study of the Risk Factors and Urinary Podocin as an Early Prognostic Indicator of Renal Injury in Diabetic Nephropathy", volume issue:69, JAPI