Wednesday, 19 December 2012
Can measuring urinary biomarkers improve the management of lupus nephritis?
Although renal biopsy is the most accurate way of assessing renal inflammation in patients with lupus nephritis (LN), it is invasive and cannot be done frequently. Currently used blood and urine biomarkers have limited utility in monitoring the activity of nephritis. In this issue Singh et al show that measuring urinary levels of vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1) could be useful in both diagnosing and monitoring LN. These levels are higher in patients with lupus than controls, higher in lupus patients who have active renal disease compared to those who do not and correlate significantly with the histological activity index in renal biopsies of patients with LN.
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