ABSTRACT
Background: Diabetic nephropathy is one of the commonest and most dreaded complications of Diabetes. The Aim was to evaluate the significance of microalbuminuria and creatinine clearance for detecting incipient diabetic nephropathy, and to find out the prevalence of nephropathy among freshly detected Type 2 diabetic patients with vs. those without hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and/or obesity.Methods: In this prospective study, 100 recently diagnosed diabetics were studied. Group A had 50 patients with at least one risk factor are hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and obesity. Group B had 50 patients without any of the aforementioned factors. Patients were investigated for presence of Diabetic nephropathy with abnormal serum Creatinine, creatinine clearance and urinary albumin levels.Results: As many as 43 out of 100 patients were found to have Diabetic nephropathy. The number was significantly higher in group A compared to group B (34/50 vs. 9/50). Incidence of nephropathy was higher with higher number of associated risk factors. Urinary microalbuminuria was the commonest abnormality, Serum creatinine was found in only 30.23% of total positive cases.Conclusions: Incidence of diabetic nephropathy is much larger than imagined in freshly diagnosed/new onset cases of DM type 2. Author also conclude that hypertension, obesity and hypercholesterolemia can contribute to development of nephropathy (68% vs. 18% in those who had the factors vs. those who didn抰). Also, urinary microalbuminuria appears to be much more sensitive than serum creatinine as screening tool.