Diabetic nephropathy is diagnosed by laboratory diagnostics.
Mandatory medical device diagnostics (under therapy).
- Monitoring of blood pressure (including self-monitoring and possibly 24-h blood pressure measurement) [at least twice a year].
Optional medical device diagnostics – depending on the results of the history, physical examination, laboratory diagnostics and obligatory medical device diagnostics – for differential diagnostic clarification.
- Cardiovascular diagnostics
- Ankle-brachial index (ABI; examination method that can describe the risk of cardiovascular disease).
- Doppler sonography of the carotids (carotid arteries) – evidence of stenosis, plaques, or intima-media thickening (IMT) of the carotids indicate a 6-, 4-, and 2-fold increased risk of myocardial infarction (heart attack), respectively
- Stress ECG (electrocardiogram during stress, that is, under physical activity/stress ergometry).
- Cardiac catheterization examination
- Renal sonography (ultrasound examination of the kidneys) or duplex sonography (ultrasound examination: combination of a sonographic sectional image (B-scan) and the Doppler sonography method; imaging method in medicine that can dynamically display fluid flows (especially blood flow)) – to exclude renal malformations, renal artery stenosis.
- Ophthalmoscopy (ophthalmoscopy).
- Long-term blood pressure measurement (24-hour blood pressure measurement).
- Electrocardiogram (ECG; recording of the electrical activity of the heart muscle) – to exclude cardiovascular sequelae.
Diabetic nephropathy (DN) screening
- Renal ultrasonography – every 5 years from the age of 40.
