Utility of filtration markers to monitor the quality of glomerular function

Diabetes mellitus can lead, along the years of its course, to chronic renal failure in a high proportion of cases. An early risk-indicator of later diabetic nephropathy is the presence of microalbuminuria, but it usually takes about fifteen to twenty years to appear. Before that, no clinical signs can disclose the underlying alterations of glomerular basement membrane that will eventually bring forth overt nephropathy. The usefulness of the altered excretion of isoenzymes of amylase as an early marker of the glomerular charge selectivity was tested in 202 juvenile onset insulin-dependent diabetics, compared with 51 normal subjects matched for age and sex