RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: This study was designed to determine the diagnostic role of urinary kidney injury molecule (KIM)-1 levels in renal damage in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus according to the urinary albumin/creatinine ratio. METHODS: Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus admitted to different polyclinics in our hospital enrolled in the study and were subdivided into three groups according to albumin/creatinine ratio - normalbuminuric (n: 20); microalbuminuric (n: 20); albuminuric (n: 18) - and compared with the control group. Urine albumin was analyzed using the immunoturbidimetric method (Architect C16000, Abbott Diagnostics). uKIM-1 was determined using a commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay test kit (USCN Life Science, Hankou, Wuhan, China). One-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Spearman correlation and Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric tests were performed. Post hoc comparisons were made using Bonferroni-corrected Mann-Whitney U tests. RESULTS: The differences between the controls and normalbuminuric, microalbuminuric and albuminuric groups were highly significant for KIM-1. Positive correlation was found between KIM-1 and urine microalbumin-urine microalbumin/creatinine (r = 0.479 P < 0.001; r = 0. 400, P < 0.001; respectively). CONCLUSION: In our study, KIM-1 levels were significantly different suggesting that urinary KIM-1 levels may be an early marker in patients with diabetic nephropathy. J. Clin. Lab. Anal. 00:1-6, 2016.