ABSTRACT
Bo Feldt-Rasmussen, Jan Skov Jensen and Knut Borch-Johnsen Rigshospitalet University Hospital, Department of Nephrology, Copenhagen, Department of Cardiology, Gentofte Hospital, and Steno Diabetes Center, Gentofte, Denmark
The concept of microalbuminuria was first introduced among diabetologists [1,2]. It is diagnosed when the urinary albumin excretion rate (UAER) is slightly elevated compared with a normal reference range but lower than what is seen when the classical dipstix are positive for protein or albumin. Microalbuminuria is a marker of an increased risk of diabetic nephropathy and of cardiovascular disease in patients with Type 1 as well as Type 2 diabetes mellitus [1-18]. A high number of studies of the pathophysiology and of interventional measures in these patients have been published, and so has many sets of recommendations on the prevention of diabetic nephropathy, with special reference to microalbuminuria [19-34] (chapters 4, 6, 17, 26,31, 41, 46, 47 of this book). More recently microalbuminuria have shown to be a risk factor of cardiovascular disease also among otherwise apparently healthy persons (35-53). Furthermore, various intervention measures in patients with microalbuminuria and diabetes Type 1 and Type 2 have proven effective (5457). Therefore, at least among diabetic patients, screening for microalbuminuria is of great value. This statement will be corroborated in the following sections of this chapter.
