Calculating the urinary microalbumin to creatinine ratio

One of my high volume referring doctors uses a lab which does not calculate the microalbumin to cr ratio. It always stops me in my tracks when I see the values.

1. To convert microalbum and urine creatinine to the useful ratio first make sure both values are expressed as mg/L or mg/ml
2. Divide the microalbumin concentration by the creatinine concentration
3. Multiply the resulting ratio by 1,000 to get mg albumin over grams creatinine

For example a patient had the following labs:

Microalbumn urine 5.6 mg/dL

Creatinine urine 91.2 mg/dL

Dividing the albumin by cr gives: 0.061

Multiply that by 1,000 to get 61 mg albumin/g creatinine