Lan Lu1, John Sedor2, 3, Jeffrey Schelling2, 3, Alicia OBrien2, 3, Vikas Gulani1, 4, Katherine M. Dell2, 5, Chris A. Flask1,<su
1Radiology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, United States; 2CWRU Center for the Study of Kidney Disease and Biology, Case Western Reserve University; 3Medicine, Metrohealth System Campus; 4Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University; 5Pediatrics, Case Western Reserve University, and Rainbow Babies and Childrens Hospital
Conbventional clinical indicators of kidney disease such as serum creatinine and albuminuria lack the sensitivity and specificity to identify early-stage diabetic nephropathy (DN). In this study, kidney fractional anisotropy (FA) assessments were obtained for groups of early-stage (eGFR ≥ 60) and late-stage (eGFR < 60) human subjects with diabetes for comparison with non-diabetic controls. Despite no differences in eGFR, significant differences in medullary FA (P = 0.001) were observed between control and early-stage diabetic kidneys. Further studies are needed to determine if diffusion FA could identify diabetics at risk for progression to clinically overt DN.