What is it about?
Although Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest burden of sickle cell anemia, with an estimated 150,000 children born each year with the disease in Nigeria, the true burden of proteinuria, an earlier and specific marker of kidney disease, has not been clearly characterized. Many of the studies on proteinuria in children with sickle cell anemia either used dipstick urinalysis or determined proteinuria during a single visit. Both methods have inherent and important limitations in characterizing proteinuria in a disease like sickle cell anemia, in which up to 18% of adults develop end-stage kidney disease. In this study, using urine protein-creatinine ratio on samples collected at least 3 months apart, we showed that about a quarter of children with sickle cell anemia have persistent proteinuria, with fetal hemoglobin level being the only factor associated with proteinuria in multivariate analysis.
Featured Image
Photo by Europeana on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Our findings showed that about a quarter of children with sickle cell anaemia have persistent proteinuria. Fetal hemoglobin was the only factor associated with persistent proteinuria. This research is important because it advances global sickle cell anemia nephropathy data from high-burden settings.
Perspectives
Writing this article was a great pleasure as it gave me the opportunity to collaborate with co-authors who are my mentors and teachers. This article made me to realize that persistent proteinuria is common among children with sickle cell anemia.
Angela Adeoti-Lawani
Federal Medical Center
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Persistent proteinuria among a cohort of Nigerian children with sickle cell anaemia, PLOS One, April 2026, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0347556.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
