Aim: Diabetic nephropathy is a major microvascular complication of diabetes mellitus (DM), and it is the most common cause of endstage
renal disease worldwide. Sialic acid is considered as an acute-phase reactant. Serum sialic acid level was found to be increased in
diabetic nephropathy patients. We aimed to measure the serum sialic acid concentration in patients with type 2 DM and to assess if it
could be used as an early marker of diabetic nephropathy. Subjects and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study that was carried out
on 40 patients subdivided into 3 groups, first group involved 25 patients with diabetic nephropathy, second group involved 15 patients
without diabetic nephropathy and the third group involved 10 patients serving as control group. All patients were selected from those
attending the outpatient diabetic clinic at Benha University Hospital between July 2017 and July 2018. Mean and standard deviation
(±SD) were used for quantitative data, and t test, Fisher extract test, and regression analysis were used for statistical analysis. A P
value 0.05 statistically insignificant. Results: On comparing patients with
diabetic nephropathy with the control group patients we found that serum sialic level is increased and this was statistically significant
and also in diabetic patients with nephropathy when compared to diabetic patients without nephropathy. The age of the onset of
the discovery of diabetes and the duration of diabetes had no impact on serum sialic acid level. Conclusion: This study showed that
serum sialic acid level is significantly increased in patients with diabetic nephropathy, and it is positively correlated with the glycemic
control parameters and negatively correlated with estimated glomerular filtration rate, and it could be used as an early predictor of
albuminuria and decrease of creatinine clearance.