Detection of renal brush border membrane enzymes for evaluation of renal injury in neonatal scleredema

Objective: To evaluate renal brush border membrane enzymes in urine as an indicator for renal injury in neonatal scleredema(NS). Methods: Sixty nine NS patients in our hospital were enrolled and divided into mild group and moderate/ severe group. Patients were further randomly divided into therapy and control subgroups for 7 days ligustrazine administration. Urine samples were collected to detect renal brush border membrane enzymes (RBBME) by ELISA and β2-microglobulin (β2-MG) by radioimmunoassay (RIA). The results were compared with those of 30 normal neonates. Data were statistically analyzed using SPSS13.0 software. Results: Both RBBME and β2-MG were found to be higher in urine in NS patients than normal controls (P 0.01). Level of RBBME increased with the severity of NS (P 0.05), while urinary β2-MG did not (P 0.05). After being treated with ligustrazine, a medicine for renal function recovery, both RBBME and β2-MG were similarly significantly decreased comparing to untreated groups (P 0.05). 79.7% of NS patients showed abnormal RBBME while only 52.2% had an abnormal urinary β2-MG (χ^2=11.65, P 0.01). Conclusion: RBBME was more sensitive than β2-MG in reflecting the renal injury in NS. Examination of RBBME effectively reflected the recovery of renal injury after treatment with ligustrazine.