First and second morning spot urine protein measurements for the assessment of proteinuria: a diagnostic accuracy study in kidney transplant recipients

BACKGROUND: Quantification of proteinuria in kidney transplant recipients is important for diagnostic and prognostic purposes. Apart from correlation tests, there have been few evaluations of spot urine protein measurements in kidney transplantation. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study involving 151 transplanted patients, we investigated measures of agreement (bias and accuracy) between the estimated protein excretion rate (ePER), determined from the protein-to-creatinine ratio in the first and second morning urine, and 24-h proteinuria and studied their performance at different levels of proteinuria. Measures of agreement were reanalyzed in relation to allograft histology in 76 patients with kidney biopsies performed for cause before enrolment in the study. RESULTS: For ePER in the first morning urine, percent bias ranged from 1 to 28% and accuracy (within 30% of 24-h collection) ranged from 56 to 73%. For the second morning urine, percent bias ranged from 2 to 11%, and accuracy ranged from 71 to 78%. The accuracy of ePER (within 30%) in first and second morning urine progressively increased from 56 and 71% for low-grade proteinuria (150–299 mg/day) to 60 and 74% for moderate proteinuria (300–999 mg/day), and to 73 and 78% for high-grade proteinuria (≥1000 mg/day). Measures of agreement were similar across histologic phenotypes of allograft injury. CONCLUSIONS: The ability of ePER to accurately predict 24-h proteinuria in kidney transplant recipients is modest. However, accuracy improves with an increase in proteinuria. Given the similar accuracy of ePER measurements in first and second morning urine, second morning urine can be used to monitor protein excretion. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12882-021-02406-x.