A spot urine test for determination of albumin-protein ratio (uAPR) may be useful in distinguishing glomerular vs tubulointerstitial source of proteinuria. A low (<0.4) uAPR, defined as urinary albumin to creatinine ratio(uACR)/urinary protein to creatinine ratio (uAPR) is more suggestive of a tubulointerstitial renal disease and less suggestive of glomerular pathology.^1-3  

A 2012 study involving simultaneous measurements of urinary albumin and total protein in over 1000 proteinuric patients found a relatively high (0.84) area under curve (AUC) in a receiver operating characteristic curve analysis for uAPR (vs 0.74 for uACR and 0.54 for uPCR) in discriminating between tubular and non-tubular proteinuria pattern on urine protein electrophoresis and immunofixation. An uAPR cut-off of <0.4 was found to be 88% sensitive and 99% specific for the diagnosis of primary tubulointerstitial disorders on renal biopsy.¹  

Due to the limitations of this study (including a relatively small subset of patient who had renal biopsy), a related editorial concluded that a low uAPR gives a “reasonable prediction of a tubular electrophoretic proteinuria”, but that it warrants further validation. Nevertheless, uAPR could potentially be useful in patients with moderate proteinuria (>300 mg/day to <3 g/day) who have not had renal biopsy and  where assessment of likelihood of tubulointerstitial vs glomerular source of proteinuria is desired.³ Interestingly, the utility of uAPR in predicting non-glomerular source of hematuria has also been reported.⁴

Bonus pearl: Did you know that the negatively-charged glomerular capillary wall repels negatively charged albumin thus preventing its filtration (charge-barrier) (5)?  

Liked this post? Download the app on your smart phone, and sign up below to catch future pearls right into your inbox, all for free! Thank you!

References

1. Smith ER, Cai MMX, McMahon LP, et al. The value of simultaneous measurement of urinary albumin and total protein in proteinuric patients. Nephrol Dial Transplant 2012;27:1534-41. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4035283/
2. Fraser SDS, Roderick PJ, McIntyre NJ, et al. Assessment of proteinuria in patients with chronic kidney disease stage 3: albuminuria and non-albumin proteinuria. PLOS ONE 2014;9:e98261. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4035283/pdf/pone.0098261.pdf
3. Ellam T, Nahas ME. Urinary albumin to protein ratio: more of the same or making a difference. Nephrol Dial Transplant 2012;27:1293-96. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22362784
4. Ohisa N, Yoshida K, Matsuki R, et al. A comparison of urinary albumin-total protein ratio to phase-contrast microscopic examination of urine sediment for differentiating glomerular and nonglomerular bleeding. Am J Kidney Dis 2008;52:235-41. https://www.ajkd.org/article/S0272-6386(08)00828-7/pdf
5. Venkat KK. Proteinuria and microalbuminuria in adults: significance, evaluation, and treatment. S Med J 2004;97:969-79. https://internal.medicine.ufl.edu/files/2012/07/5.18.05.04.-Proteinuria-review.pdf