Serum cystatin C for early detection of diabetic nephropathy in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Renal impairment is an important feature of diabetes mellitus, causing a significant morbidity and mortality, and much effort has been devoted to the detection of this complication at a stage when it is silent and potentially reversible.The protease inhibitor Cystatin C is a non-glycosylated low molecular weight protein. Cystatin C has been proposed to be a marker as it is produced by all nucleated cells at a constant rate and is freely filtered by the glomeruli and completely catabolized in the proximal tubules.The aim of this study is to evaluate serum cystatin C as a marker of early renal affection in type 2 diabetic patients.To achieve this goal, this study was performed on 80 type 2 diabetic patients and were compared with 20 healthy subjects of matched age, sex and BMI as a control group.