A Comparison of 4- and 24-Hour Urine Samplesfor the Diagnosis of Proteinuria in Pregnancy

Background: preeclampsia is a serious complication of pregnancy,and it is vital to diagnosis the condition as early as possible.proteinuria is an important symptom of preeclampsia,and repeated urine analysis to screen for the condition is partof the standard antenatal care. the purpose of this study wasto determine the correlation between 4- and 24-hour urine totalprotein values to examine whether the 4-hour urine samplescould be used for the diagnosis of proteinuria in hypertensivedisorders of pregnancy.methods: a cross-sectional study was performed on 110pregnant (after gestational week 20 of pregnancy) patientswho were hypertensive (blood pressure .140/90 mmhg) andhad proteinuria as defined by positive urinary protein of atleast 1+ in dipstick. patients' urine samples were collectedover 24 hours; the first 4 hours were collected separately fromthe next 20-hours. patients, who did not collect the 24-hoururine, were excluded from the study. one hundred patientsmet the criteria, and were included in the study. the urinevolume, total protein and creatinine levels of 4- and 24-hourssamples were measured. the correlation between 4-hour and24-hour samples was examined using pearson correlation test.results: of the 100 patients, 42 had no proteinuria, 44 hadmild proteinuria, and 14 had severe proteinuria. the urine proteinvalues of 4-hour samples correlated with those of the 24-hours samples for patients with mild and severe forms of thedisease (p<0.001, r=0.86).conclusion: this study showed there was a correlation between4-hour and 24-hour urine proteins. the finding indicatesthat a random 4-hour sample might be used for the initialassessment of proteinuria