Background. Microalbuminuria (MA) precedes clinical nephropathy in pat
ients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, and is associated with
an increased mortality, mostly due to cardiovascular disease in patie
nts with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Microalbuminuria is
rarely detected in patients with diabetes of less than five years' dur
ation. Our study was designed to determine whether MA and its sequelae
also appear 5-8 years after pregnancy complicated by gestational diab
etes mellitus (GDM). Methods. We examined the presence of MA in 72 wom
en who had not conceived since a previous GDM-pregnancy 5-8 years ago
and compared them to a control group of 35 women who had no GDM histor
y, and who were matched for age, parity and time since last pregnancy.
Microalbuminuria was determined in all subjects using an overnight 8
hours urine collection. Mann-Whitney rank-sum test was used to compare
data between the study and the control groups. Student's t test was u
sed to compare data within the study group. Results. Median value of t
he urinary albumin excretion rate (AER) in the study group was signifi
cantly higher than median value of urinary AER of the control group (p
<0.0001), but only 30.5% of the subjects of the study group were found
to be microalbuminuria-positive, defined as urinary AER value of more
than 21 mg/24 h. No correlation between MA and blood pressure, fastin
g blood glucose, serum creatinine, blood urea nitrogen and parity was
found. Conclusions. MA was found to be more frequent after GDM and no
predisposing factors for its appearance were elucidated. Hence, we sug
gest that it may well be a sign of early renal disease and that long-t
erm follow-up of all GDM patients for MA and other markers of renal di
sease is strongly indicated.