Podocyturia-A Reliable Marker for Early Diabetic Nephropathy

Constant efforts are ongoing to identify reliable and reproducible noninvasive biomarkers for acute and chronic kidney injury targeted toward identifying kidney injury not only in its early stages, but also in classifying kidney disease according to severity, predict disease outcomes, and monitor response to therapeutic interventions. The number of podocytes in urine or podocyturia increases with active kidney disease even before proteinuria appears and seems to improve with treatment. Also, podocyturia seems to be confined to active disease, in contrast to proteinuria, which is present during both active and chronic phases of glomerular damage. It will be particularly interesting to explore podocyturia, as a marker of subclinical early renal damage, which may be a detectable way before the occurrence of overt proteinuria and development of full blown glomerular disease.