Background:

The main cause of impaired renal function in diabetic patients is diabetic nephropathy (ND), but there are other causes that should always be investigated especially when they do not detect macroalbuminuria.

Aims:

Characterization of demographic, clinical and etiological variables found in a population of type 2 diabetics over 10 years of non-macroalbuminuric evolution with nitrogen products elevation.

Methods:

We identified 67 patients, in whom several imaging studies were performed to obtain an etiological diagnosis. If the studies were inconclusive, percutaneous renal biopsy was performed.

Results:

The mean age was 73.4 years (SD: 9.3). Mean creatinine 1.8 mg / dl, 50.75% of the patients had normal albuminuria (A1) and 49.3% moderately increased albuminuria (A2). In 28 patients, imaging diagnoses were obtained, with hypertensive nephropathy being the main finding. A total of 58.20% (39 patients) of the population were submitted to renal biopsy. ND was detected in the 28% of cases (11 patients), hypertensive nephrosclerosis 28% (11 patients), mixed nephropathy (diabetic and hypertensive) 18% (7 patients), 5% IgA nephropathy (2 patients).

Conclusions:

Hypertensive nephropathy is the main cause of elevated nitrogen products in non-macroalbuminuric type 2 diabetics. Isolated ND accounts for only 16.42% (11 patients) of the causes of this population.

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