Quantification of albumin in urine using preconcentration and near-infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy

Abstract Urinary albumin is an important diagnostic and prognostic marker for cardiorenal disease. Recent studies have shown that elevation of albumin excretion even in normal concentration range is associated with increased cardiorenal risk. Therefore, accurate measurement of urinary albumin in normal concentration range is necessary for clinical diagnosis. In this work, thiourea-functionalized silica nanoparticles are prepared and used for preconcentration of albumin in urine. The adsorbent with the analyte was then used for near-infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy measurement directly and partial least squares model was established for quantitative prediction. Forty samples were taken as calibration set for establishing PLS model and 17 samples were used for validation of the method. The correlation coefficient and the root mean squared error of cross validation is 0.9986 and 0.43, respectively. Residual predictive deviation value of the model is as high as 18.8. The recoveries of the 17 validation samples in the concentration range of 3.39–24.39 mg/L are between 95.9%–113.1%. Therefore, the method may provide a candidate method to quantify albumin excretion in urine.