Abstract:

Objectives: To evaluate the levels of urinary vascular endothelial growth factor（VEGF）in type 2 diabetic patients with different degrees of diabetic nephropathy (DN) and to assess the value of vascular endothelial growth factor in the early detection of DN. Methodology: Ninty-four patients with type 2 diabetes were enrolled into this study. They were divided into three groups: normoalbuminuria (n = 30), microalbuminuria (n = 33), and macroalbuminuria (n = 31), according to their urinary albumin excretion, and 30 healthy persons were regarded as normal controls. Urinary VEGF levels were evaluated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Their clinical and laboratory data were collected. Results: The VEGF levels were significantly increased in macroalbuminuric (p<0.01)、microalbuminuric (p<0.01) and normoalbuminuric (p<0.01) diabetic patients compared to that control subjects (p<0.05). Correlation study revealed that VEGF levels were markedly positively correlated to urinary albumin (r = 0.748, p<0.001), disease duration (r = 0.714, p ＜0.001), serum urea (r = 0.466, p = 0.004), eGFR (r=0.437, p=0.005), serum creatinine (r = 0.412, p = 0.013), and Total Cholesterol (r = 0.377, p = 0.023) . Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis of uVEGF levels for early diagnosis and detection of DN revealed that the cut-off value of uVEGF was 42.6pg/ml with 94.7% sensitivity and 96.4% specificity. Conclusions: The findings of the present study suggest that VEGF may be considered as a novel potential diagnostic biomarker for the early detection of diabetic nephropathy.

Key words: diabetic dephropathy, diabetes mellitus, urinary VEGF, urinary albumin