Simultaneous measurement of urinary albumin and total protein may facilitate decision-making in HIV-infected patients with proteinuria

Objective We recently showed that a urine albumin/total protein ratio (uAPR)??30?mg/mmol) into two groups: those with predominantly tubular proteinuria (TP) (uAPR??100?mg/mmol), a renal assessment was made; eight had a kidney biopsy. In all cases, the uAPR results correlated with the nephrological diagnosis. Conclusions In HIV-infected patients, measuring uAPR may help to identify patients in whom a renal biopsy is indicated, and those in whom tubular dysfunction might be an important cause of proteinuria and which may be related to antiretroviral toxicity. We suggest that this would be useful as a routine screening procedure in patients with proteinuria.