Epidemiology and prevention of cardiovascular complication in chronic kidney disease patients

The risk for cardiovascular disease is significantly higher among patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) than among the general population, considering that cardiovascular disease is the prominent cause of both morbidity and mortality in dialysis patients. This is explained mainly by the considerable prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors among CKD patients since the earliest stages of renal impairment, which include not only the so-called traditional risk factors, but also a number of additional risk factors that are specific to CKD and to the dialytic treatment itself. Considering the multiplicity of cardiovascular risk factors operating in CKD patients, as well as the crucial impact of their cardiovascular condition on long-term outcome, it is mandatory that all the available interventions aimed at the correction of all the modifiable risk factors for cardiovascular disease are performed as early as possible in the progression of the disease. In particular, the results of several controlled clinical trials have shown that a timely correction of anemia and of calcium-phosphate disorders leads to a significant improvement in the cardiovascular conditions of CKD patients. Evidence also is growing regarding the benefits of intervention of newly recognized risk factors for cardiovascular disease such as inflammation and oxidant stress.