T cells are still the most accurate urinary biomarker for lupus nephritis, reported Katharina Kopetschke and her coauthors.
In a study of 123 lupus patients between April 2009 and March 2013, the area under the curve values for CD8+ T cells and CD4+ T cells (1.000 and 0.9969, respectively) showed better distinction of active lupus nephritis (LN) than did CD19+ B cells (0.7823), CD14+ macrophages (0.9066), and proteinuria (0.9201), Ms. Kopetschke and her colleagues reported.
The findings indicate that noninvasive urine monitoring “might become a useful tool to facilitate clinical decisions concerning kidney biopsies and treatment of LN,” the investigators said in the paper.
Read the full article in Arthritis Research & Therapy (doi:10.1186/s13075-015-0600-y).