Abstract: Objective　To study the significance of podocalyxin（PCX），microalbuminuria（mAlb） and the combined detection of urine PCX and mAlb in the early diagnosis of diabetic nephropathy（DN） by receiver operating characteristic（ROC） curve.  Methods　The detection results of PCX，mAlb，PCX+mAlb from 35 DN patients and 47 diabetes mellitus（DM） patients were evaluated by ROC curve. Results　PCX and mAlb of DN group were significantly higher than those of DM group（P＜0.01）.The areas under ROC curve of PCX，mAlb and PCX+mAlb in DN patients were 0.872，0.921 and 0.973 respectively. The single discrimination equation was predictive probability value（P）＝1/[1+e^{－（－5.030+0.067mAlb+0.097PCX）}]. When P≥0.565，it was positive and diagnosed as DN. Conclusions　By the evaluation of urine ROC curve，the combined detection of urine PCX and mAlb is better than PCX or mAlb individual detection for the diagnosis of DN.

Key words: Podocalyxin, Microalbuminuria, Diabetic nephropahty, Relative operating characteristic curve