NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Testing for certain protein profiles in the urine of children with idiopathic nephrotic syndrome can differentiate steroid-sensitive from steroid-resistant disease, according to study findings presented last week at the American Society of Nephrology's annual meeting in Philadelphia.

"At present, the only way to tell children with steroid-sensitive disease from those with steroid-resistant disease is to give them a trial of steroids, which is associated with considerable morbidity," lead author Dr. Robert P. Woroniecki, from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, told Reuters Health. "So, there is a need for a test that can differentiate these children beforehand."

In the present study, Dr. Woroniecki's team analyzed protein levels in urine samples from 25 children with idiopathic nephrotic syndrome. From this, they identified protein profiles that were able to distinguish steroid-sensitive disease from steroid-resistant disease with 100% accuracy.

Unfortunately, "it costs a lot of money to do this sort of protein profiling," so it really isn't feasible at the population level, Dr. Woroniecki said. However, his team did uncover a single urine protein that seemed to account for much of the predictive power of the profiles.

"The accuracy of this protein in determining the steroid status of idiopathic nephrotic syndrome was not as high as with complete profiling, but was still over 90%," Dr. Woroniecki said. An assay for this protein, however, would be more suitable for clinical practice, he added.

Dr. Woroniecki said that his team is now conducting a prospective study to validate the predictive power of the protein profiles uncovered in the current study.

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