Microalbuminuria in a Cohort of Ambulatory HIV-Positive Nigerians

Quantification of urine albumin is an established method of screening, diagnosis and monitoring the progression of kidney disease. Renal disease is a frequent accompaniment of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection. Limited data exists with regard to the epidemiology of microalbuminuria in indigenous African HIV patients. To study this issue further, we evaluated 90 antiretroviral-naive HIV seropositive adults and compared them with an equivalent number of age and sex matched HIV seronegative controls. Individuals with known confounders of urine albumin were excluded from the study. We found microalbuminuria in 35.6% of HIV cases as against 13.3% in the seronegative group (p=0.001). In addition, there was a positive correlation between cluster of differentiation 4 (CD4) cell count and microalbuminuria (p=0.001). Similarly, decreasing estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) correlated with the finding of microalbuminuria. Our findings suggest that microalbuminuria is a frequent finding in adult anti-retroviral naive seropositive Nigerians particularly in those with lower CD4 cell counts and lower eGFR.