Quantitative urinary protein excretion in chronic renal failure.

The diagnostic value of the measurement of quantitative proteinuria in patients with a creatinine clearance of less than 10 ml/min was determined in patients seen in a single center over a 5-year period. All 126 patients in whom a definitive renal diagnosis was possible were included. Patients with glomerular disease excreted 6.1 +/- 0.6 g/day and patients with interstitial disease 1.5 +/- 0.3 g/day (p less than 0.001). In individual patients with end-stage renal disease, however, measurement of urinary protein excretion excluded (with 95% confidence levels) patients with interstitial diseases only when greater than 2.9 g/day. To examine the natural history of proteinuria in progressive renal disease, urinary protein, absolute and factored for glomerular filtration rate (GFR; creatinine clearance), was determined at 10 ml/min decrements in GFR for patients with membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis, idiopathic membranous glomerulonephritis and focal glomerulosclerosis. Quantitative urinary protein excretion was relatively constant as GFR fell but did fall significantly at less than 10 ml/min but only to 4.8-7.0 g/day at even that level. Urinary protein excretion/GFR increased as GFR fell, particularly at end stage where a highly significant four-fold rise was seen; an increase also occurred in patients with primary interstitial disease. Similar data were obtained for 34 randomly selected patients after at least 1 year of chronic hemodialysis. Although a significant decline in absolute urinary protein excretion occurred during the year of dialysis to levels not different between glomerular and interstitial disease, urinary protein excretion/unit GFR remained elevated. Increased urinary protein excretion/unit GFR may result from a functional adaptation of remaining nephrons in response to declining renal mass.