I understand people with diabetes have to get a timed test for microalbuminuria, based on a 24-hour urine specimen, but I recently heard about a home (do-it-yourself) spot tests are becoming available with dipsticks. Do you think such spot tests can produce the same accurate results as those based on the 24-hour urine sample?

In terms of the best test for detecting early nephropathy, we employ a random urine in our clinic. The urine specimen is then analyzed for microalbumin and also creatinine. The ratio is then expressed as micrograms of albumin per mg creatinine. Values above 30 are similar in predictive power to twenty-four hour urine collections where the cutoff is greater than 30 micrograms for the 24 hours. Albumin dipstick strips are an alternative. However, they give a concentration. This is not quite as accurate as the random urine. The good news is that we don’t have to do twenty-four hour urines on everybody for the annual screen.

JTL