Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is one of the leading causes of death and disability in Singapore and worldwide. CKD patients often suffer with inadequately controlled hypertension, the presence of which is associated with cardiovascular complications such as left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy, cardiac failure, and stroke. As such, novel treatments are required to improve blood pressure control in order to improve health outcomes in CKD patients.
Remote ischaemic conditioning (RIC) using transient limb ischaemia/reperfusion has been shown to protect the kidney and microvasculature in experimental and clinical studies, and daily episodes of RIC (termed chronic RIC or CRIC) applied for 1 to 12 months have been shown to lower systemic blood pressure (SBP), prevent stroke and reduce post-myocardial infarction left ventricular (LV) remodelling in experimental and clinical studies. Whether CRIC can reduce SBP in hypertensive patients with CKD is not known. In the ERIC-BP-CKD feasibility and efficacy study, we hypothesise that CRIC administered for 28 days will lower systemic blood pressure and improve blood pressure control in patients with CKD and hypertension.
In this study, subjects will be randomised in a 1:1 ratio to receive therapy from either the active autoRIC® Device or identical sham autoRIC® Device.
