NephrologyNow The Ultimate Guide to Kidney Disease Research

This systematic reviews aims to assess whether vitamin D and calcium supplements reduce the risk for cardiovascular disease in adults (without renal disease). The authors were limited by a small number of heterogeneous studies where cardiovascular disease was not the primary outcome. They concluded that vitamin D supplementation at moderate to high doses may reduce [...]

Peri-operative cardiac events are a major risk of renal transplantation. This single-center study found that elevated troponin I levels drawn immediately prior to transplant were a risk factor for major adverse cardiac events in the first two weeks post-operatively. This may identify a group of patients who would benefit from more intensive monitoring or treatment [...]

This re-analysis of data from the North American Symptomatic Carotid Endarterectomy Trial showed that patients with stage 3 CKD and symptomatic high-grade carotid stenosis gained a large benefit in stroke risk reduction after endarterectomy. Free full text access kindly provided by the American Society of Nephrology.

This observational study identified that patients with renal failure undergoing PCI (percutaneous coronary intervention) frequently receive contraindicated anticoagulants such as enoxaparin and eptifibatide.  Such exposure was associated with an increased risk of in-hospital major bleeding.

This randomized, non-blinded study of patients with renovascular disease compared renal artery revascularization plus medical therapy vs medical therapy alone.  Those in the revascularization arm experience an increased rate of serious complications with no reduction in pre-defined clinical endpoints.

This study evaluated whether the high overall mortality in patients starting dialysis is a consequence of increased cardiovascular mortality risk only or whether noncardiovascular mortality is equally increased. In this analysis, patients starting dialysis were found to have an increased risk of death not specifically caused by excess cardiovascular mortality.

These clinical practice guidelines developed by KDIGO are designed to address the diagnosis, evaluation, prevention and treatment of CKD related disorders of bone mineral metabolism.

This study compared the use of dobutamine and dipyridamole in cardiac stress testing of patients on hemodialysis.  Although dobutamine induced more pronounced myocardial ischemia than dipyridamole in chronic hemodialysis patients, use of dipyridamole more accurately identifies patients at high risk for subsequent cardiac death or non-fatal CAD.

In this retrospective analysis, the combination of decreased GFR and dipstick proteinuira were independently associated with stent thrombosis, all cause mortality and nonfatal MI/death.