NEW YORK - Looking at various proteins in urine may help doctors predict the development of diabetic nephropathy in type 2 diabetes patients well before they develop the condition, according to a report in the March Diabetes Care.

"We have identified a set of urine proteins almost 10 years before the onset of diabetic nephropathy that identify those who will go on to get diabetic nephropathy, the most common cause of renal failure in the US and the world," Dr. Ravi Thadhani, from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, told Reuters Health. Diabetic nephropathy is a serious complication of diabetes in which the kidneys lose their ability to function over time.

Thadhani and colleagues compared urinary protein profiles among 62 Pima Indians with type 2 diabetes and normal kidney function who were followed for 10 years for the development of diabetic kidney disease.

The authors identified a protein "signature" that proved highly predictive of the development of diabetic nephropathy.

"While these findings require a significant amount of work to identify and test the robustness of these markers, they offer the potential for clinicians one day to be able to tell whether a diabetic patient will get renal failure well before the development of this devastating condition, and, hence, offer hope for early intervention to prevent its onset," Thadhani said.

"First we need to confirm the identification of the proteins we uncovered, then we need to test this profile in other populations with type 2 diabetes to determine if the same predictive potential remains," Thadhani explained. "Then we will carry out prospective studies in larger populations."