Investigating the relationship between blood lead concentrations and kidney function tests in drug abusers admitted to Babol Hospital, Iran: A short report

BACKGROUND: The amount of impurity and addition of lead in drugs has grown increasingly. This study investigated the relationship between blood lead concentrations and kidney function tests. METHODS: This cross-sectional-analytical research was conducted between October and March 2016 in Babol City, Mazandaran Province, Iran. 25 patients who were addicted to opium (case group) and 25 patients who had no history of drug use (control group) (30-60 years old) were randomly selected and paraclinical tests of the patient's blood and urine were performed. SPSS software, Pearson's correlation coefficient test, independent samples t-test, and Mann-Whitney test were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: Between blood lead concentration and uric acid (r = 0.33, P = 0.01), glomerular filtration rate (GFR) (r = 0.6, P = 0.07), protein (24-hour urine) (r = 0.46, P = 0.001), 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) (r = 0.67, P < 0.001), and total creatinine (24-hour urine) (r = 0.3, P = 0.03), there was a direct and significant relationship. There was an inverse and important relationship between GFR and protein (24-hour urine) (r = -0.31, P = 0.02) and serum creatinine (r = -0.66, P ≤ 0.001). There was a direct and significant relationship between GFR and creatinine urine (r = 0.5, P < 0.001) and total creatinine (24-hour urine) (r = 0.4, P = 0.002). CONCLUSION: Drug users had higher levels of lead than the control group. The high concentration of lead in the body harms the kidney function.