Serum Cystatin C in Type 2 Diabetic Patients with Early Renal Damage

Abstract

Diabetic nephropathy is one of the most common complications in diabetes mellitus (DM). The ability to assess renal function in diabetes patients rapidly and early is of major importance. Nowadays, cystatin C (cys C) is introduced as a new marker for diagnosis of early renal damage. The purpose of this study was to study serum cys C in type 2 diabetic patients with early renal damage. This is a hospital-based, cross-sectional analytical study involving 50 cases of type 2 diabetic patients attending the Diabetic Clinic of Mandalay General Hospital. In this study, most cases were females with male to female ratio of 1:2. Mean age was 59±11.9. Mean values of serum cys C, albumim creatinine ratio (ACR) and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) were 0.89±0.37 mg/l, 18.46±16.47 mg/g and 92.34±22.63 ml/min, respectively. In this study, 60% of cases were eGFR 60-90 ml/min and 40% of cases were eGFR >90 ml/min. And then, 82% of cases were normoalbuminuria and 18% of cases were microalbuminuria. Serum cys C was negatively correlated with eGFR (r=-0.0235, p=0.1) and positively correlated with urine for ACR (r=0.177, p=0.219). In addition, serum cys C was positively correlated with normoalbuminuria (r=0.188, p=0.238) and negatively correlated with microalbuminuria (r=-0.008, p=0.984). But these are not statistically significant. Therefore, this study is concluded that serum cys C was higher in both normoalbuminuric and microalbuminuric type 2 diabetic patients. The correlations of serum cys C with microalbuminuria and normoalbuminuria were not statistically significant. Therefore, it is controversial to say that serum cys C can be used as early detection marker of renal damage in type 2 diabetic patients in this study.