SHORT-TERM VARIABILITY AND SAMPLING DISTRIBUTION OF VARIOUS PARAMETERS OF URINARY ALBUMIN EXCRETION IN PATIENTS WITH NON-INSULIN-DEPENDENT DIABETES-MELLITUS
Ym. Smulders et al., SHORT-TERM VARIABILITY AND SAMPLING DISTRIBUTION OF VARIOUS PARAMETERS OF URINARY ALBUMIN EXCRETION IN PATIENTS WITH NON-INSULIN-DEPENDENT DIABETES-MELLITUS, The Journal of laboratory and clinical medicine, 132(1), 1998, pp. 39-46
Citations number
25
Categorie Soggetti
Medicine, General & Internal","Medicine, Research & Experimental","Medical Laboratory Technology
We determined the degree of variability and sampling distribution of s
everal commonly used parameters of microalbuminuria in patients with n
on-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) and proposed a sampling
strategy for estimating the level of albuminuria. Four patients with
NIDDM with previously documented microalbuminuria collected 30 consecu
tive split (overnight and daytime) 24-hour urine samples (experiment A
). These samples were analyzed for total 24-hour albumin excretion; da
ytime, overnight, and 24-hour albumin concentration; and daytime, over
night, and 24-hour albumin-to-creatinine ratio. In a second experiment
(B), 10 patients collected 10 consecutive overnight urine samples. Fi
nally, a total of 300 separate triplicate urine samples were analyzed
for the variability of 24-hour albumin excretion (100 samples) and alb
umin-to-creatinine ratios in 24-hour urine (100 samples) and overnight
urine (100 samples). We found that the sampling distribution shape of
all parameters of albuminuria is positively skewed, without consisten
t evidence of log-normality. When two methods were used for quantifyin
g day-to-day variability (the interquartile range/median ratio and the
chance of a single measurement being >50% off the actual value of alb
uminuria), the overnight albumin-to-creatinine ratio is the least-vari
able parameter of albuminuria, scoring 0.38% and 10% on both methods,
respectively, in experiment A. Collecting multiple samples of overnigh
t urine improves accuracy, The largest gain in precision in estimating
the actual value of albuminuria is obtained for sample sizes of three
and five and does not increase with nonconsecutive sampling of Urine.
Based on the combined data from experiments A and B, the expected mea
n deviation of the median of three and five overnight samples from the
actual level of the overnight albumin-creatinine ratio is 17.9% and 1
2.1%, respectively. An analysis of variability in three sets of 100 tr
iplicate 24-hour urine samples shows that the overnight albumin-to-cre
atinine ratio is a significantly more-constant parameter of microalbum
inuria than the amount of albumin excreted in 24 hours or the albumin-
to-creatinine ratio in 24-hour urine (p < 0.05). We concluded that the
parameters of diabetic albuminuria have positively skewed, non-log-no
rmal sampling distributions. The overnight albumin-to-creatinine ratio
is the least-variable parameter of microalbuminuria. We recommend col
lecting three consecutive early morning urine samples, using the media
n value of the albumin-to-creatinine ratio in these samples for quanti
fying albuminuria.