Chronic kidney disease, a useful trigger for proactive primary care? Mortality results from large UK cohort

Much of the emphasis for primary care management of chronic kidney disease (CKD) has focused on cardiovascular risk; however, many patients die of other causes.

In order to guide future primary care management of CKD, we report the causes of death from a large UK CKD cohort linked to health care administrative data.

The Grampian Laboratory Outcomes Mortality and Morbidity Study (GLOMMS-1) is a community cohort of people with established CKD, identified in 2003 and followed up for 6 years. Causes of death were available from death certificates. The relative likelihood of different causes of death was compared to the general population.

When standardized for age and sex, mortality was 4.7 (95% confidence interval 4.54.9) times higher in GLOMMS-1 than the general population. Non-cardiovascular diseases accounted for 1076 (50.9%) of deaths, 3.7 times more common than in the age- and sex-matched general population. For those with stages 3 and 4 CKD, without cardiovascular disease at baseline, a non-cardiovascular cause accounted for almost two-thirds of deaths. In those 75 years and older, dementia and falls were among the main non-cardiovascular causes of death.

Mortality in those with CKD is high, with non-cardiovascular diseases accounting for more than half of all deaths. While there is evidence that intervention may benefit those at risk of cardiovascular death, most of the non-cardiovascular causes of death identified were not readily amenable to prevention. A mechanism to identify which patients may benefit from intervention to prevent cardiovascular disease or renal disease progression is needed.