Oral Paricalcitol in Stage 3 - 5 Chronic Kidney Disease

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in patients with chronic kidney disease. According to a previous study, only 15.6% of the patients beginning dialysis therapy had a normal echocardiogram, with left ventricular hypertrophy, left ventricular dilatation and systolic dysfunction occurring in 40.7%, 28% and 15.6% of patients, respectively. In addition, these patients are at an accelerated risk of developing atherosclerosis. The Kidney Disease Outcome Quality Initiative guideline recently raised concerns of a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in chronic kidney disease patients not yet requiring dialysis treatment. In addition, very recent data suggested that vitamin D deficiency is an important predictor of mortality in end-stage renal disease patients. Furthermore, hemodialysis patients treated with paricalcitol, a selective vitamin D receptor activator, showed a significantly lower risk of cardiovascular death than those not receiving vitamin D therapy. A number of studies also showed positive benefit of vitamin D receptor activator treatment on regression of left ventricular hypertrophy in dialysis patients. However, there is so far no data in patients with stage 3 and 4 chronic kidney disease where a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and cardiac hypertrophy has been reported.