The Journal of family practice
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Our goal was to evaluate whether screening patients with diabetes for microalbuminuria (MA) is effective according to the criteria developed by Frame and Carlson and those of the US Preventive Services Task Force. ⋯ Screening for MA meets only 4 of 6 Frame and Carlson criteria for evaluating screening tests. The recommended strategies to overcome diagnostic uncertainty by using repeated testing are based on expert opinion, are difficult to follow in primary care settings, do not improve diagnostic accuracy sufficiently, and have not been tested in a controlled trial. Although not advocated by the American Diabetes Association, semiquantitative MA screening tests using random urine sampling have acceptable accuracy but may not be reliable in all settings.