Abstract:Objective To investigate the value of serum high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and interleukin-27 (IL-27) in the early diagnosis of diabetic nephropathy (DN).Methods A total of 146 DN patients who were hospitalized in Qingdao Haici Hospital from January 2020 to July 2021were selected as the observation group, and 60 patients with diabetes mellitus yet without DN were included as the control group. The systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), fasting plasma glucose (FPG), 2-hour postprandial plasma glucose (2 hPG), serum levels of total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), hs-CRP, and IL-27, urinary albumin-creatinine ratio (UACR), and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) were measured and compared between the two groups of patients. Multivariable Logistic regression was used to analyze the risk factors that affected the occurrence of DN. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was applied to analyze the value of serum hs-CRP and IL-27 for the early diagnosis of DN.Results The levels of TC, TG, LDL-C, hs-CRP and IL-27 as well as the UACR in the observation group were higher than those in the control group (P < 0.05), whereas the eGFR in the observation group was lower than that in the control group (P < 0.05). There was no difference in the levels of FPG, 2 hPG and HDL-C between the two groups (P < 0.05). Multivariable Logistic regression analysis showed that TC level [O^R = 1.721, (95% CI: 1.187, 2.495) ], hs-CRP level [O^R = 2.409, (95% CI: 1.477, 3.929) ], IL-27 level [O^R = 1.987, (95% CI: 1.256, 3.145) ] and UACR [O^R = 1.693, (95% CI: 1.127, 2.543) ] were factors affecting the occurrence of DN (P < 0.05). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of hs-CRP and that of IL-27 for predicting the occurrence of DN were 0.769 (95% CI: 0.596, 0.941) and 0.827 (95% CI: 0.717, 0.939), respectively. The AUC of the combined detection of the hs-CRP and IL-27 for the diagnosis of DN was 0.895 (95% CI: 0.848, 929), which was higher than that where the two indicators were applied alone.Conclusions The increased serum levels of hs-CRP and IL-27 are risk factors for DN, and the serum levels of hs-CRP and IL-27 can be established as early diagnostic indicators for DN.