Research Article Urine Monocyte Chemoattractant Protein-1 and Lupus Nephritis Disease Activity: Preliminary Report of a Prospective Longitudinal Study

Copyright © 2015 Sabah Alharazy et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective. This longitudinal study aimed to determine the urine monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (uMCP-1) levels in patients with biopsy-proven lupus nephritis (LN) at various stages of renal disease activity and to compare them to current standardmarkers. Methods. Patients with LN—active or inactive—had their uMCP-1 levels and standard disease activitymarkersmeasured at baseline and 2 and 4 months. Urinary parameters, renal function test, serological markers, and renal SLE disease activity index-2K (renal SLEDAI-2K) were analyzed to determine their associations with uMCP-1. Results. A hundred patients completed the study. At each visit, uMCP-1 levels (pg/mg creatinine) were significantly higher in the active group especially with relapses and were significantly associated with proteinuria and renal SLEDAI-2K. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves showed that uMCP-1 was a potential biomarker for LN. Whereas multiple logistic regression analysis showed that only proteinuria and serum albumin and not uMCP-1 were independent predictors of LN activity. Conclusion. uMCP-1 was increased in active LN. Although uMCP-1 was not an independent predictor for LN activity, it could serve as an adjunctive marker when the clinical diagnosis of LN especially early relapse remains uncertain. Larger and longer studies are indicated. 1