Three-year renal function trajectory and its association with adverse renal event in patients with type 2 diabetes

The study evaluated associations between 3-year eGFR trajectory patterns and adverse renal event in diabetic patients.

Adverse renal event was defined as sustained eGFR <60 or one ACR >300 mg/g creatinine. Cox proportional hazards models evaluated association between eGFR trajectory patterns and adverse renal event.

We detected six clusters. Cluster 1 had a stable but relatively low baseline eGFR level (n = 823, 20.52%), cluster 2 had a high baseline eGFR level, but slightly decreased afterwards (n = 1708, 42.59%), cluster 3 had an increasing eGFR during the first 15-month follow-up and then a decline rate (n = 505, 12.59%), cluster 4 decreased during the first 9-month follow-up and then remained stable (n = 774, 19.30%), cluster 5 had a sharp decline and then was elevated after 21 months until the end of follow-up (n = 135, 3.37%), and cluster 6 had an extremely fluctuating eGFR and then a sharp increase at the last 12-month period (n = 65, 1.62%). Clusters 1, 3, and 4 show increased adverse renal risks compared with cluster 2 (2.24, 1.69-2.97; 2.70, 2.02-3.61; and 2.15, 1.64-2.83, respectively).

Patients with sustained low-level renal function, renal decline, or increasing trend in eGFR trajectory encountered an increased CKD risk.