BACKGROUND:

Diabetic nephropathy is the first cause of chronic kidney disease and renal function replacement worldwide.

OBJECTIVE:

To evaluate the risk factors of initiation-progression of diabetic nephropathy.

MATERIAL AND METHOD:

A cross-sectional, retrospective, descriptive study, through analysis of renal function tests, such as the creatinine and albuminuria clearance of 24 hours, an intentional search of abnormal findings was carried out from January to December 2018 in the external consultation of a second level general hospital. The data was analyzed using the statistical package SPSS version 15 for Windows.

RESULTS:

There were included 56 patients. It was possible to detect diabetic nephropathy in 61% of the population against 30% by means of techniques traditionally used in the general consultation of diabetic patients. Active smoking [OR 3.500 (95%CI, 1188-22211)] and persistent hyperglycemia were found as the main factors associated with the development of nephropathy [OR 2.143 (95%CI, 1.145-4.009)], constituting the level of prolonged suboptimal control the common denominator that differentiates them from the population without diabetic nephropathy (p = 0.002).

CONCLUSIONS:

Active smoking and persistent hyperglycemia were found as the main factors associated with the development of nephropathy.