Early Biochemical Changes in Renal Status of Diabetic Rats

Aim: The aim of this study was to compare the diagnostic value of serum creatinine and cystatin c in detection of minor changes at early stages of development of diabetic kidney disease. Background: Loss of kidney function is grossly under diagnosed due to the inherent weakness in the traditional kidney function markers, and cumbersome and uneconomical nature of the gold standard. The imperativeness to evaluate the ability of newer renal function markers becomes inevitable. Methods: Male rats (albino rats) were aged-matched and weighed at the onset of the study. Diabetes was induced by a single tail vein injection of Alloxan monohydrate (60mg/kg body weight) dissolved in normal saline. Diabetes was confirmed by glucose estimation after 48hours. Only rats with blood glucose levels greater than 11.0mmol/L were used for the study. The rats were grouped to into four (4) categories to represent duration of diabetes. The rats were sacrificed weekly and blood samples collected. Determination of creatinine, urea, potassium, sodium, chloride, blood glucose and cystatin-c were done weekly for the test groups and control. Results: There was significant high mean blood glucose in the test group compared to the control across the weekly duration of diabetes. There were was no significant difference in mean creatinine levels between the test cases and controls. There was significant increase in the cystatin-c levels of the test groups compared with the control across the four weeks duration. Conclusion: The weakness and inability of creatinine to detect minor changes in kidney function is apparent in the face of rising incidence of kidney disease. This provides sufficient rationale for development of modern relevant tool. Cystatin-c proved to have better ability to detect early changes in kidney function than creatinine and should be considered a veritable tool detection of diabetic kidney disease.