Treatment of Dyslipidemia in Chronic Kidney Disease

Abstract

Dyslipidemia is a common feature of various renal diseases. This perturbed lipid metabolism results in accelerated atherosclerosis and increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Treatment of dyslipidemia, in addition to normalization of blood pressure and reduction of proteinuria, could provide additional means to retard the progression of chronic renal insufficiency. Possible therapeutic approaches include mainly dietary and life-style modifications, selective use of some technical components of dialysis systems, and the judicious prescriptions of lipid-lowering drugs. Even with relatively normal lipid and lipoprotein profiles statin therapy seems to prevent atherogenesis acceleration. A wide range of therapeutic interventions, targeting the lipid abnormalities that may develop in chronic renal patients and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) are currently available, though still without convincing evidence based on long-term prospective studies which clearly demonstrate a significant reduction in cardiovascular morbidity and mortality of ESRD patients. However, extensive investigations, concerning the best long-term therapeutic strategy for this high-risk population of patients, are still missing.