Clinical and histopathological predictors of rapid kidney function decline in patients with biopsy-proven diabetic kidney disease

According to the Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) guidelines, rapid kidney function decline in DKD is defined as an estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) slope ≤-5 mL∙min -1∙1.73 m -2∙year -1. [...]181 T2D patients with kidney biopsy-proven DKD were included in this study. Clinical data included sex, age, body mass index (BMI), diabetic retinopathy (DR), duration of diabetes, systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), duration of hypertension, proteinuria per 24 h, urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (uACR), urinary N-acetylglutamate synthase (NAG), baseline eGFR, serum creatinine (Scr), hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), platelet count, hemoglobin (Hb), white blood cell (WBC), serum albumin, serum uric acid, triglyceride (TG), high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, serum C3, serum C4, and the use of renin–angiotensin–aldosterone system (RAAS) inhibitors and lipid-lowering medications. According to the KDIGO guidelines, non-rapid decliners were defined as eGFR decline slope >-5 mL∙min -1∙1.73 m -2∙year -1 and rapid decliners were defined as eGFR decline slope ≤-5 mL∙min -1∙1.73 m -2∙year -1.