Cardiovascular disease care fragmentation in kidney transplantation: a call for action

Kidney transplantation (KT) is the treatment of choice for end-stage kidney disease, offering the highest survival benefit among all the different renal replacement therapies.1 Long-term renal allograft and patient survival have shown substantial improvements over time: however, death with a functioning allograft remains the leading cause of late allograft loss, with cardiovascular disease (CVD) –related deaths representing a major cause of mortality.2 Although recipients of KT have a lower risk of CVD as compared with the 10- to 20-fold increased risk in patients on dialysis, their risk of CVD is substantially higher than that in the general population3 (Figure 1).
Source: Kidney International - Category: Urology & Nephrology Authors: Tags: Policy Forum Source Type: research