Patients who have chronic kidney disease and pulmonary hypertension are at greater risk for a variety of adverse outcomes, according to new research.
Adverse outcomes included mortality, hospitalization, AKI and kidney failure.
“Most prior studies of [pulmonary hypertension] PH in CKD included relatively younger patients, and it is unclear how PH relates to outcomes among elderly patients with CKD, an age group at high risks for both CKD and PH,” Sankar D. Navaneethan, MD, MS, MPH, of the Selzman Institute for Kidney Health and Baylor College of Medicine, and colleagues wrote. “Further, associations of PH with important kidney outcomes such as kidney failure have not been systematically studied. Finally, PH poses a significant risk of hospitalization in CKD; however, the differential risk of cardiovascular versus non-cardiovascular hospitalizations in people with CKD and PH has not been examined.”
To investigate, the researchers assessed outcomes for 180,312 Medicare beneficiaries aged 67 years or older (median age, 80.7; 57.8% were women; 10.3% were African American), following patients for up to 5 years.
During all periods of follow-up, patients with CKD and pulmonary hypertension had an increased risk for mortality (hazard ratios of 2.87, 1.56 and 1.47 at 1, 2 to 3 and 4 to 5 years, respectively) and hospitalization (relative risk of 4.61 for cardiovascular hospitalization and 2.62 for non-CV hospitalization at 1 year) compared with those who only had CKD.
