Correlation of renal artery vascular resistive index by renal doppler sonography with microalbuminuria and its role in early detection of diabetic nephropathy

Objective: Renal artery resistive index evaluation in patients with diabetes mellitus and control group along with its correlation with microalbuminuria. Materials and Methods: This study comprised of 50 cases of diabetic mellitus (NIDDM) in age group of (40-60 years) and 50 cases of age match control of non-diabetic patients. Total 100 cases underwent duplex ultrasonography. Both groups of 50 cases each were tested for blood urea, serum creatinine, urine proteinuria and microalbuminuria. Results: In our study 50 diabetics were further divided into two groups based on their RI values. Group 1 were the patients with RI value above 0.7 and group 2 with RI less than 0.7. 30% patients had RI value more than 0.7 and 20% patients had RI value less than 0.7. mean age of the patients in group 1 was 55.73 years and 54.05years in group 2.66% patients with diabetes were male and 34% female. 77% of group 1 patients and 20% in group 2 had overt proteinuria. 23% of group 1 and 60%of group 2 patients had microalbuminuria. There were 20% patients in group 2 which showed normal RI values and no overt or microalbuminuria. Patients with overt proteinuria had mean RI of 0.75. Microalbuminuric patients with mean RI of 0.69 and patients with no proteinuria had mean RI value of 0.64. Among diabetics, patients with RI more than 0.7 had mean blood urea of 34.5 mg/dl and 30.2 mg/dl in group 2. Among diabetics mean serum creatinine value in group 1 patients is 2.28 mg/dl and 0.99 mg/dl in group 2 patients. Mean RI of control group was 0.62 and 0.71 in diabetics. Conclusion: High RI is significantly associated with micro and overt proteinuria. Thus, RI value can be used as an additional parameter for early detection of diabetic nephropathy similar to that with microalbuminuria. There is potential role of renal RI in identifying diabetic patients who are developing diabetic nephropathy.