Bioimpedance-Guided Monitoring of Volume Status in Patients With Kidney Disease: A Systematic Review and...

Bioimpedance technologies are increasingly used to determine fluid status in patients with chronic kidney disease and those with end-stage kidney disease on dialysis. We aimed to determine whether this technology improves clinical outcomes as compared with usual care.

We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of trials, comparing fluid management guided by bioimpedance technologies to standard of care in patients with chronic kidney disease. Our primary outcome was all-cause mortality. Secondary outcomes included blood pressure control, all-cause hospitalization, major adverse cardiovascular events, and change in left ventricular mass index.

Our search identified 819 citations of which 12 randomized controlled trials were included (2420 patients). No studies of non-dialysis-dependent chronic kidney disease patients met inclusion criteria. Mean age was 55 years and mean follow-up was 1 year. There was a statistically significant difference in all-cause mortality between both arms studied (risk ratio [RR] 0.64, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.44, 0.99). Better blood pressure control was observed in the bioimpedance arm of the included articles, weighted mean differences (WMD) -3.13 mm Hg (95% CI: -5.73, -0.53 mm Hg) for systolic blood pressure and WMD -2.50 mm Hg (95% CI: -4.36, -0.64 mm Hg) for diastolic blood pressure. No difference was observed concerning the other outcomes.

Among patients on maintenance dialysis, bioimpedance-guided volume management showed decreased all-cause mortality and blood pressure but no significant difference in all-cause hospitalization, major adverse cardiac event, or change in left ventricular mass index. This may be due to a younger population sample than previous articles. Moreover, our study identified a knowledge gap by highlighting the lack of studies evaluating this technology in non-dialysis-dependent chronic kidney disease patients.