[Cardiovascular risk in patients with renal failure]

Patients with renal failure (RF) have an increased risk of cardiovascular events. The aims of the present study were: a) to evaluate if RF is an independent cardiovascular risk factor, and b) to analyze the predictive capacity of the original Framingham and REGICOR functions charts in patients with RF.

A total of 912 patients between 35-74 years old (average: 55.7 years; 56.4% female) with no evidence of cardiovascular disease, were included in the present study. The RF was defined in patients with a glomerular filtration < 60 ml/min (estimated with the equation of Cockroft-Gaukt).

13.5% of the patients presented RF criteria. The final rate of cardiovascular events was higher in the population with RF (21.1% vs 12.0%; p < 0.01; relative risk = 1.76; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.19-2.59). Statistically significant differences were not found between men and women. The multiple logistic regression analysis showed that cigarette smoking (odds ratio [OR] = 2.17; 95% CI, 1.38-3.35), diabetes (OR = 2.08; 95% CI, 1.37-3.15), RF (OR = 1.83; 95% CI, 1.10-3.06), antihypertensive treatment (OR = 2.03; IC del 95%, 1.32-3.11), and hypertension (OR = 2.06; 95% CI, 1.06-4.05) were important factors for the prediction of coronary and cardiovascular events. The original Framingham function predicted suitably the coronary risk in the population with RF (18.3% versus 17.9%; p = 0.869) whereas REGICOR underestimated it (7.5% versus 17.9%; p < 0.05). The area under the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve obtained with the original Framingham function was similar to that of REGICOR function: 0.61 (95% CI, 0.47-0.75) and 0.62 (95% CI, 0.48-0.76), respectively.

The RF behaves like an important cardiovascular risk factor. The area under ROC curve obtained with the original Framingham function was similar to that of REGICOR function.