Haemoglobin trajectories in chronic kidney disease and risk of major adverse cardiovascular events.

BACKGROUND

Trajectories of haemoglobin in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) have been poorly described. In such patients, we aimed to identify typical haemoglobin trajectory profiles and estimate their risks of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE).

METHODS

We used 5-year longitudinal data from the CKD-REIN cohort patients with moderate to severe CKD enrolled from 40 nationally representative nephrology clinics in France. A joint latent class model was used to estimate, in different classes of haemoglobin trajectory, the competing risks of (i) MACE + defined as the first event among cardiovascular death, non-fatal myocardial infarction, stroke or hospitalization for acute heart failure, (ii) initiation of kidney replacement therapy (KRT), and (iii) non-cardiovascular death.

RESULTS

During the follow-up, we gathered 33 874 haemoglobin measurements from 3 011 subjects (median, 10 per patient). We identified five distinct haemoglobin trajectory profiles. The predominant profile (n = 1885, 62.6%) showed an overall stable trajectory and low risks of events. The four other profiles had nonlinear declining trajectories: early strong decline (n = 257, 8.5%), late strong decline (n = 75, 2.5%), early moderate decline (n = 356, 11.8%) and late moderate decline (n = 438, 14.6%). The four profiles had different risks of MACE, while the risks of KRT and non-cardiovascular death consistently increased from the haemoglobin decline.

CONCLUSION

In this study, we observed that two third of patients had stable haemoglobin trajectory and low risks of adverse events. The other third had a nonlinear trajectory declining at different rates, with increased risks of events. A better attention to dynamic changes of haemoglobin in CKD should be paid.

Informations de copyright

© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the ERA.