Cardiovascular diseases in patients with chronic renal diseases

The risk of cardiovascular disease in patients with chronic renal disease appears to be far greater than in the general population and the risk of cardiovascular death is much higher than the risk of eventually requiring renal replacement therapy. Heart failure is important finding and it is evident even before the initiation of dialysis; the frequency of heart failure is 10 to 30 times higher in patients on dialysis than in the general population. Left ventricular hypertrophy has incidence of nearly 75-80% and is closely related to heart failure, ventricular arrhythmias, fatal myocardial infarction, aortic root dilatation and cerebrovascular event. Ischaemic heart disease is usually the consequence of coronary artery disease, but 27% of haemodialysis patients may have symptoms without atherosclerotic changes in coronary arteries. Silent myocardial ischemia is more frequent in dialysis population. Hypertension is present in 80-85% of patients and its prevalence is linearly related to glomerular filtration rate. Patients with end-stage renal disease are more likely to have an increase in pulse pressure and isolated systolic hypertension and they may not demonstrate the normal nocturnal decline in blood pressure. Patients on dialysis are prone to calcification of media and intima due to disbalance of promoters and inhibitors of calcification process. Now, there are no valid data about the privilege of one dialysis method over another in cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Numerous traditional and non-traditional risk factors urge for preventive measures for cardiovascular diseases in patients with chronic renal diseases.