Effects of intensive blood pressure control on mortality and cardiorenal function in chronic kidney disease patients.

BACKGROUND

Blood pressure (BP) variability is highly correlated with cardiovascular and kidney outcomes in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). However, appropriate BP targets in patients with CKD remain uncertain.

METHODS

We searched PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of CKD patients who underwent intensive BP management. Kappa score was used to assess inter-rater agreement. A good agreement between the authors was observed to inter-rater reliability of RCTs selection (kappa = 0.77;  = 0.005).

RESULTS

Ten relevant studies involving 20 059 patients were included in the meta-analysis. Overall, intensive BP management may reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease mortality (RR: 0.69, 95% CI: 0.53 to 0.90, : 0.01), all-cause mortality (RR: 0.77, 95% CI: 0.67 to 0.88,  < 0.01) and composite cardiovascular events (RR: 0.84 95% CI: 0.75 to 0.95,  < 0.01) in patients with CKD. However, reducing BP has no significant effect on the incidence of doubling of serum creatinine level or 50% reduction in GFR (RR: 1.26, 95% CI: 0.66 to 2.40,  = 0.48), composite renal events (RR 1.07, 95% CI: 0.81 to 1.41,  = 0.64) or SAEs (RR: 0.97, 95% CI: 0.90 to 1.05,  = 0.48).

CONCLUSION

In patients with CKD, enhanced BP management is associated with reduced all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, and incidence of composite cardiovascular events.