Clinical variables differentiating diabetic from nondiabetic kidney disease in patients with diabetes: A...

Patients with diabetes may have kidney diseases other than the diabetic kidney disease. Kidney biopsy is the investigation of choice when this is suspected. This retrospective analysis included all patients known to have diabetes mellitus (DM) and who had a kidney biopsy at our center between 1998 and 2014. The aim of this study was to assess if an association exists between the clinical factors on the presence or absence of diabetic nephropathy (DNP). A total number of 206 patients were included in our study. The association between the diabetic retinopathy (DRP) and DNP was high (P = 0.001). We found that the DRP is highly specific for the presence of DNP [89.7% (78 out of 87)] whereas sensitivity of DRP for DNP was 56.3% (67 out of 119). Among other factors, only duration of DM showed a significant association (P = 0.005) (odds ratio: 1.1085 and confidence interval: 1.025-1.149) with the development of DNP. We conclude that the absence of DRP is strongly associated with the presence of nondiabetic renal disease while the presence of DRP has a low sensitivity for the presence of DNP.