renal insufficiency

Importance: Hemodialysis requires reliable vascular access to the patient’s blood circulation, such as an arteriovenous access in the form of an autogenous arteriovenous fistula or nonautogenous arteriovenous graft. This Review addresses key issues associated with the construction and maintenance of hemodialysis arteriovenous access.

Observations: All patients with kidney failure should have an individualized strategy (known as Patient Life-Plan, Access Needs, or PLAN) for kidney replacement therapy and dialysis access, including contingency plans for access failure. Patients should be referred for hemodialysis access when their estimated glomerular filtration rate progressively decreases to 15 to 20 mL/min, or when their peritoneal dialysis, kidney transplant, or current vascular access is failing. Patients with chronic kidney disease should limit or avoid vascular procedures that may complicate future arteriovenous access, such as antecubital venipuncture or peripheral insertion of central catheters. Autogenous arteriovenous fistulas require 3 to 6 months to mature, whereas standard arteriovenous grafts can be used 2 to 4 weeks after being established, and “early-cannulation” grafts can be used within 24 to 72 hours of creation. The prime pathologic lesion of flow-related complications of arteriovenous access is intimal hyperplasia within the arteriovenous access that can lead to stenosis, maturation failure (33%-62% at 6 months), or poor patency (60%-63% at 2 years) and suboptimal dialysis. Nonflow complications such as access-related hand ischemia (“steal syndrome”; 1%-8% of patients) and arteriovenous access infection require timely identification and treatment. An arteriovenous access at high risk of hemorrhaging is a surgical emergency.

Conclusions and Relevance: The selection, creation, and maintenance of arteriovenous access for hemodialysis vascular access is critical for patients with kidney failure. Generalist clinicians play an important role in protecting current and future arteriovenous access; identifying arteriovenous access complications such as infection, steal syndrome, and high-output cardiac failure; and making timely referrals to facilitate arteriovenous access creation and treatment of arteriovenous access complications.

Description: The Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) organization developed a clinical practice guideline in 2020 for the management of patients with diabetes and chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Methods: The KDIGO Work Group (WG) was tasked with developing the guideline for diabetes management in CKD. It defined the scope of the guideline, gathered evidence, determined systematic review topics, and graded evidence that had been summarized by an evidence review team. The English-language literature searches, which were initially done through October 2018, were updated in February 2020. The WG used the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) approach to appraise evidence and rate the strength of the recommendations. Expert judgment was used to develop consensus practice points supplementary to the evidence-based graded recommendations. The guideline document underwent open public review. Comments from various stakeholders, subject matter experts, and industry and national organizations were considered before the document was finalized.

Recommendations: The guideline includes 12 recommendations and 48 practice points for clinicians caring for patients with diabetes and CKD. This synopsis focuses on the key recommendations pertinent to the following issues: comprehensive care needs, glycemic monitoring and targets, lifestyle interventions, antihyperglycemic therapies, and educational and integrated care approaches.

AIMS:

The Hygia Chronotherapy Trial, conducted within the clinical primary care setting, was designed to test whether bedtime in comparison to usual upon awakening hypertension therapy exerts better cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk reduction.

METHODS AND RESULTS:

In this multicentre, controlled, prospective endpoint trial, 19 084 hypertensive patients (10 614 men/8470 women, 60.5 ± 13.7 years of age) were assigned (1:1) to ingest the entire daily dose of ≥1 hypertension medications at bedtime (n = 9552) or all of them upon awakening (n = 9532). At inclusion and at every scheduled clinic visit (at least annually) throughout follow-up, ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) monitoring was performed for 48 h. During the 6.3-year median patient follow-up, 1752 participants experienced the primary CVD outcome (CVD death, myocardial infarction, coronary revascularization, heart failure, or stroke). Patients of the bedtime, compared with the upon-waking, treatment-time regimen showed significantly lower hazard ratio-adjusted for significant influential characteristics of age, sex, type 2 diabetes, chronic kidney disease, smoking, HDL cholesterol, asleep systolic blood pressure (BP) mean, sleep-time relative systolic BP decline, and previous CVD event-of the primary CVD outcome [0.55 (95% CI 0.50-0.61), P < 0.001] and each of its single components (P < 0.001 in all cases), i.e. CVD death [0.44 (0.34-0.56)], myocardial infarction [0.66 (0.52-0.84)], coronary revascularization [0.60 (0.47-0.75)], heart failure [0.58 (0.49-0.70)], and stroke [0.51 (0.41-0.63)].

CONCLUSION:

Routine ingestion by hypertensive patients of ≥1 prescribed BP-lowering medications at bedtime, as opposed to upon waking, results in improved ABP control (significantly enhanced decrease in asleep BP and increased sleep-time relative BP decline, i.e. BP dipping) and, most importantly, markedly diminished occurrence of major CVD events.

TRIAL REGISTRATION:

ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00741585.