Wasting Away—I’m Losing My Protein: Diagnosing and Treating Proteinuria

Stuart Walton, BVSc (Hons), BSCAGr (Hons), MANZCVS (SAIM)

Dr. Walton is a clinical assistant professor in Small Animal Internal Medicine at University of Florida. He is a clinician of 20 plus years, receiving his veterinary degree at the University of Queensland. He has completed two internal medicine residencies at Veterinary Specialist Services (Australia) and Louisiana State University. Dr. Walton currently resides in Gainesville, Florida where he trains students, interns, and residents promoting common-sense veterinary medicine. He has a broad range of interests including infectious and inflammatory diseases, immune mediated disease, respiratory, urinary, gastrointestinal, and hepatic disease as well as extracorporeal blood purification techniques. He is the Co-Editor of Clinical Medicine of the Dog and Cat and has authored multiple articles and book chapters.

Overview:

Proteinuria has been previously underrecognized and undertreated. With a rise in the cases due to increased ability to detect proteinuria clinicians must discern whether the proteinuria is preglomerular, glomerular, or post glomerular in origin. Urinary protein should always be evaluated in light of urinalysis findings with detection of significant proteinuria in urine and an inactive sediment triggering clinicians to go in search of the underlying cause. This lecture will focus on the tests for detection of proteinuria, the diagnostic screening process once proteinuria has been identified and the current treatments to reduce the amount of protein in the urine.

Learning Objectives:

To overview the physiology of urine production
To outline the classifications and causes of proteinuria
To provide an overview of the diagnostic workup and discuss the definitive diagnostic tests for determining the causes of proteinuria
To discuss the treatment of proteinuria
To provide a review of the literature for the prognosis of animals with proteinuria

This course is RACE-approved for 1.0 continuing education credits hours in jurisdictions that accept RACE-approval.