Evaluation of the relationship between the prealbumin/fibrinogen ratio and diabetic nephropathy in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Introduction: Our aim was to compare the prealbumin/fibrinogen ratio (PFR) of diabetic patient populations with or without diabetic nephropathy. Materials and methods: People with type 2 diabetes who attended the internal medicine outpatient clinic were enrolled in the study. Two groups were formed according to the proteinuria of the patients: Diabetic nephropathy and non-nephropathy group. Diabetic nephropathy was calculated using the mathematical formula of spot urine albumin/spot urine creatinine x100. Patients with proteinuria above 200 mg/g were considered to have nephropathy. PFR was simply calculated by dividing prealbumin by fibrinogen. Results: A total of 152 patients who attended our outpatient clinic were enrolled in the study. There were 68 patients in the diabetic nephropathy group and 84 in the non-nephropathy group. The prealbumin/fibrinogen ratios (PFR) were significantly lower in the nephropathic group [0.061 (0.02-0.16)] than the non-nephropathic group [0.0779 (0.01-0.75)] (p = 0.002). Conclusions: We suggest that decreased levels of PFR can indicate diabetic nephropathy in subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus.