title: A fifteen year cohort based evaluation of beta 2-microglobulin as an early sign of Balkan endemic nephropathy.
abstract: The occurrence of elevated urinary beta 2-microglobulin (U beta 2m) has been established to be more common in village populations living in areas where BEN is endemic when compared to appropriate control population. In addition, beta 2-microglobulinuria is associated with BEN. It has been demonstrated that there is an increase in the U beta 2m in apparently healthy populations located in high risk areas. It is 15 years since the first systematic investigations of U beta 2m in the villages of Brod Posavina were conducted. The purpose of this study was to determine the value of a positive test for tubular proteinuria as defined by increased U beta 2m, in identifying individuals at risk to develop BEN. In these studies we followed two cohorts for 15 years: one group consisted of individuals who were positive for tubular proteinuria by U beta 2m testing in 1974; the second group was an age and sex matched group from the same village who were never positive after 12 testings in 1974. The results show that a positive test for U beta 2m is associated with 9.9 times greater relative risk of developing BEN when compared to controls that had no positive U beta 2m tests.
authors.affiliation: Croatian Institute of Public Health, Zagreb, Yugoslavia.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hrabar
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Aleraj
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ceović
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cvoriscec
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vacca
authors.forename: P W
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Hall
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001449:Balkan Nephropathy / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000652:urine*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012307:Risk Factors; D015022:Yugoslavia / Q000453:epidemiology; D001613:beta 2-Microglobulin / Q000652:urine*
chemical_list: D001613:beta 2-Microglobulin