What does urine protein +3 mean? How was it formed?

After undergoing a urine protein test, many patients cannot understand the results shown on the report. For example, many patients are confused about what urine protein +3 means and wonder if this situation is serious? I don’t even know how urine protein +3 is formed. Let’s take a look below.

Urine protein 3+ (+++, three plus signs) is the result of a 24-hour urine protein quantitative test. It can also be expressed as three plus signs for urine protein or urine protein +3, all of which mean the same thing. The three plus signs in urine protein mean that 1L of urine contains 2.0-4.0g of protein, that is, 2.0-4.0g/L.

Normal urine contains no or only trace amounts of protein, and the test result is negative (-). When the protein content in the urine rises to a certain amount, the test result is positive (+).

The main reason for the formation of urine protein 3+ is that various pathological injuries such as infection lead to local microcirculation disorders in the damaged kidneys of patients, causing ischemia and hypoxia of renal tissue. Once the renal vascular endothelial cells are damaged, the function of the damaged renal capillary endothelial cells changes, the dynamic balance function is disrupted, and inflammatory cells in the blood circulation are attracted to infiltrate, forming an inflammatory reaction, and simultaneously starting renal fibrosis. The glomerular basement membrane is damaged, the filtration pore size increases or closes, the basement membrane breaks, the charge barrier is damaged, and the permeability of the kidney is enhanced, which cannot effectively block the leakage of protein, thus forming urine protein in clinical practice!