Correlation between the protein content in 6-hours and 24-hours urine samples in hospitalized women with probable preeclampsia

Preeclampsia is one of the most important complications during pregnancy and the gold standard for its diagnosis is 24 hours urine protein assay. In relation to that, the aim of the present study was to determine the possibility of replacing 6-hours with 24-hours urine protein assay. A descriptive analytic study was performed on 30 pregnant women over 20 weeks of gestation, hospitalized with probable diagnosis of preeclampsia with at least a positive urinary strip test or (1+) for protein and blood presure ≥140/90. First a random urine sample was obtained for measuring protein/ creatinine ratio. Then 2 distinctive sets of urine samples were collected: first for 6-hours and then for 18-hours. Protein was measured in the 6 hour sample, then two samples were mixed and after the protein assay the concentration was counted as the protein content in 24-hours sample. Data was analyzed by Spearman correlation with considering P-value (<0.05) as meaningful. There was significant positive correlation between the 6-hour and 24-hour urine proteins (P=0.018, r=0.429). There was not any correlation between protein /creatinine ratio of 6-hour (p=0.366, r=0.171) and 24-hour (p=0.794, r=0.050) urine samples. This study suggests that a 6-hour urine sample protein assay can be substituted with a 24-hour urine collection for diagnosis of preeclampsia.There is no correlation between the protein /creatinine ratio of 6 and 24 hours urine samples.