Prevalence of proteinuria in hiv naive patients: A pilot study

Background: Evaluation of proteinuria in HIV naive infected patients is important, as it is often an early indicator of underlying kidney dysfunction, a common sequel of HIV infection.
Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of proteinuria in HIV positive naïve patients. 
Method: This is a cross-sectional study involving hundred (100) newly diagnosed HIV positive patients which were randomly selected and recruited for the study. Patients were screened for proteinuria using urine dipstick to exclude subject with asymptomatic urinary tract infection and those without protein in their urine. Those patients found with protein in their urine, the proteinuria was quantified using uP/Cr ratio. 
Result: The age range of the subjects was between 16 and 78 years and the mean age was 34.41 ±10.59 yrs. Proteinuria by dipstick analysis was present in 76 HIV positive patients (76%), with female 44(57.9%) and male 32 (42.1%), with female: male ratio of 1.7:1. The female HIV positive patients had 1+ protein in the urine of 36(81.8%) and 2+ proteins in the urine of 8(18.2%), while the male HIV positive patients had 1+ protein in urine of 27 (84.4%) and 2+proteins in the urine of 5(15.6%). The prevalence of proteinuria by urine protein: creatinine ratio was estimated to be 13%, with females 12% and males, 1%.
Conclusion: This study shows high prevalence of proteinuria in HIV positive naïve patients with female preponderance distribution.