ORLANDO, Florida — Hospitalization rates were higher in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) treated with dialysis than those treated with conservative management, among those with an estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) < 25 mL/min/1.73m2 and in most racial/ethnic groups, new research shows.
“Patients mostly start dialysis because of unpleasant symptoms that cause suffering including high potassium levels and high levels of uremic toxins in the blood,” senior author Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh, MD, PhD, MPH, told Medscape Medical News.
“Conservative management serves to address and manage these symptoms and levels of toxicities without dialysis, so conservative management is an alternative approach and patients should always be given a choice between [the two],” stressed Kalantar-Zadeh, professor of medicine at the University of California, Irvine.
The results were presented during Kidney Week 2022.
“There has been growing recognition of the importance of conservative nondialytic management as an alternative patient-centered treatment strategy for advanced kidney disease. However, conservative management remains under-utilized in the United States, which may in part be due to uncertainties regarding which patients will most benefit from dialysis versus nondialytic treatment,” said first author Connie Rhee, MD, also of the University of California, Irvine.
“We hope that these findings and further research can help inform treatment options for patients, care partners, and providers in the shared decision-making process of conservative management versus dialysis,” added Rhee, in a press release from the American Society of Nephrology.
Asked for comment, Sarah Davison, MD, noted that part of the Society’s strategy is, in fact, to promote conservative kidney management (CKM) as a key component of integrated care for patients with kidney failure. Davison is professor of medicine and chair of the International Society Working Group for Kidney Supportive Care and Conservative Kidney Management.
“We’ve recognized for a long time that there are many patients for whom dialysis provides neither a survival advantage nor a quality of life advantage,” she told Medscape Medical News.
“These patients tend to be those who have multiple morbidities, who are more frail, and who tend to be older, and in fact, the patients can live as long, if not longer, with better symptom management and better quality of life by not being on dialysis,” she stressed.
Study Details
In the study, using data from the Optum Labs Data Warehouse, patients with advanced CKD were categorized according to whether or not they received conservative management, defined as those who did not receive dialysis within 2 years of the index eGFR (first eGFR < 25 mL/min/1.73m2), versus receipt of dialysis parsed as late versus early dialysis transition (eGFR < 15 vs ≥ 15 mL/min/1.73m2 at dialysis initiation).
Hospitalization rates were compared between those treated with conservative management compared with late or early dialysis.
“Among 309,188 advanced CKD patients who met eligibility [criteria], 55% of patients had ≥ 1 hospitalization(s) within 2 years of the index eGFR,” the authors report. The most common causes of hospitalization among all patients were congestive heart failure, respiratory symptoms, or hypertension.
In most racial groups (non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic patients), patients on dialysis had higher hospitalization rates than those who received conservative management, and patients who started dialysis early (transitioned to dialysis at higher levels of kidney function) demonstrated the highest rates across all age groups compared with those who started dialysis late (transitioned to dialysis at lower levels of kidney function) or were treated with conservative management.
Among Asian patients, those on dialysis also had higher hospitalization rates than those receiving conservative management, but patients who started dialysis late had higher rates than those on early dialysis, especially in older age groups, possibly because they were sicker, Kalantar-Zadeh suggested.
Conservative Care Has Pros and Cons, but Canada Has Embraced it
As Kalantar-Zadeh explained, conservative management has its pros and cons compared with dialysis. “Conservative management requires that patients work with the multidisciplinary team including nephrologists, nutritionists, and others to try to manage CKD without dialysis, so it requires patient participation.”
On the other hand, dialysis is both easier and more lucrative than conservative management, at least for nephrologists, as they are well-trained in dialysis care and it can be systematically applied. As to which patients with CKD might be optimal candidates for conservative management, Kalantar-Zadeh agreed this requires further study.
But he acknowledged that most nephrologists are not hugely supportive of conservative management because they are less well-trained in it and it is more time-consuming. The one promising change is a new model introduced in 2022, a value-based kidney care model, that if implemented will be more incentivizing for nephrologists to offer conservative care more widely.
Davison meanwhile believes the “vast majority” of nephrologists based in Canada — as she is — are “highly supportive” of CKM as an important modality.
“The challenge, however, is that many nephrologists remain unsure as to how to best deliver or optimize all aspects of CKM whether that is symptom management, advanced care planning, or how they must manage symptoms to align with a patient’s goals,” Davison explained.
“But it’s not that they do not believe in the value of CKM.”
Indeed, in her province, Alberta, nephrologists have been offering CKM for decades, and while they are currently standardizing care to make it easier to deliver, there is no financial incentive to offer dialysis over CKM.
“We are now seeing those elements of kidney supportive care as part of core competencies to manage any person with chronic illness including CKD,” Davison said.
“So it’s absolutely doable and contrary to one of the myths about CKM, it is not more time-consuming than dialysis — not when you know how to do it, you are just shifting your focus,” she emphasized.
The study was funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Kalantar-Zadeh has reported receiving honoraria and medical directorship fees from Fresenius and DaVita. Davison has reported no relevant financial relationships.
Kidney Week 2022. Abstract SA-OR33. Presented November 5, 2022
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