Research Priorities for Palliative Care for Older Adults with Advanced Chronic Kidney Disease.

Older adults with advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) often have multiple comorbid conditions, a high symptom burden, and limited life expectancy. There is mounting concern that the intensive patterns of care that many of these patients receive at the end of life are discordant with their values and preferences. The nephrology community has recognized that there are significant unmet palliative care needs in this population.

Inflammatory Markers and Risk for Cognitive Decline in Chronic Kidney Disease: The CRIC Study.

Introduction: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with an increased risk of cognitive decline, but the mechanisms remain poorly defined. We sought to determine the relation between serum inflammatory markers and risk of cognitive decline among adults with CKD.

Methods: We studied 757 adults aged ≥55 years with CKD participating in the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort Cognitive study.

Loss of executive function after dialysis initiation in adults with chronic kidney disease.

The association of dialysis initiation with changes in cognitive function among patients with advanced chronic kidney disease is poorly described. To better define this, we enrolled participants with advanced chronic kidney disease from the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort in a prospective study of cognitive function. Eligible participants had a glomerular filtration rate of 20 ml/min/1.

Advance Directives and End-of-Life Care among Nursing Home Residents Receiving Maintenance Dialysis.

Background And Objectives: Little is known about the relation between the content of advance directives and downstream treatment decisions among patients receiving maintenance dialysis. In this study, we determined the prevalence of advance directives specifying treatment limitations and/or surrogate decision-makers in the last year of life and their association with end-of-life care among nursing home residents.

Design, Setting, Participants, & Measurements: Using national data from 2006 to 2007, we compared the content of advance directives among 30,716 nursing home residents receiving dialysis to 30,825 nursing home residents with other serious illnesses during the year before death.

Re-evaluation of re-hospitalization and rehabilitation in renal research.

Introduction: The use of administrative data to capture 30-day readmission rates in end-stage renal disease is challenging since Medicare combines claims from acute care, inpatient rehabilitation (IRF), and long-term care hospital stays into a single "Inpatient" file. For data prior to 2012, the United States Renal Data System does not contain the variables necessary to easily identify different facility types, making it likely that prior studies have inaccurately estimated 30-day readmission rates.

Methods: For this report, we developed two methods (a "simple method" and a "rehabilitation-adjusted method") to identify acute care, IRF, and long-term care hospital stays from United States Renal Data System claims data, and compared them to methods used in previously published reports.

The association between Self-Reported Medication Adherence scores and systolic blood pressure control: a SPRINT baseline data study.

We examined baseline data from the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT) to investigate whether medication adherence, measured by the 8-item Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8), was associated with systolic blood pressure (SBP) and whether MMAS-8 score and number of antihypertensive medications interacted in influencing SBP. A total of 8435 SPRINT participants were included: 21.2% had low adherence (MMAS-8: <6); 40.

Trends in Receipt of Intensive Procedures at the End of Life Among Patients Treated With Maintenance Dialysis.

Background: Many dialysis patients receive intensive procedures intended to prolong life at the very end of life. However, little is known about trends over time in the use of these procedures. We describe temporal trends in receipt of inpatient intensive procedures during the last 6 months of life among patients treated with maintenance dialysis.

Measuring vascular reactivity with resting-state blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal fluctuations: A potential alternative to the breath-holding challenge?

Measurement of the ability of blood vessels to dilate and constrict, known as vascular reactivity, is often performed with breath-holding tasks that transiently raise arterial blood carbon dioxide (PCO) levels. However, following the proper commands for a breath-holding experiment may be difficult or impossible for many patients. In this study, we evaluated two approaches for obtaining vascular reactivity information using blood oxygenation level-dependent signal fluctuations obtained from resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data: physiological fluctuation regression and coefficient of variation of the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging signal.

Age and Small Airway Imaging Abnormalities in Subjects with and without Airflow Obstruction in SPIROMICS.

Rationale: Aging is associated with reduced FEV to FVC ratio (FEV/FVC), hyperinflation, and alveolar enlargement, but little is known about how age affects small airways.

Objectives: To determine if chest computed tomography (CT)-assessed functional small airway would increase with age, even among asymptomatic individuals.

Methods: We used parametric response mapping analysis of paired inspiratory/expiratory CTs to identify functional small airway abnormality (PRM) and emphysema (PRM) in the SPIROMICS (Subpopulations and Intermediate Outcome Measures in COPD Study) cohort.

Supportive Care: Economic Considerations in Advanced Kidney Disease.

Kidney supportive care describes multiple interventions for patients with advanced CKD that focus on improving the quality of life and addressing what matters most to patients. This includes shared decision making and aligning treatment plans with patient goals through advance care planning and providing relief from pain and other distressing symptoms. Kidney supportive care is an essential component of quality care throughout the illness trajectory.

Evaluation of long-term surgical site occurrences in ventral hernia repair: implications of preoperative site independent MRSA infection.

Purpose: Previous work demonstrated that prior MRSA infection [MRSA(+)] is associated with 30-day surgical site infection (SSI) following ventral hernia repair (VHR). We aimed to determine the impact of MRSA(+) on long-term wound outcomes after VHR.

Participants: A retrospective cohort study was performed at a tertiary center between July 11, 2005, and May 18, 2012, of patients undergoing elective VHR with class I wounds.

Increased depression and metabolic risk in postmenopausal breast cancer survivors.

Objective: Breast cancer survivors (BCS) are at high risk for the development of obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and metabolic syndrome. There is increasing interest in the association between depression and metabolic dysfunction, which is relevant in this population as depression is often present in the chronic phase of cancer recovery. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate metabolic risk in BCS with and without depression compared to non-cancer controls.

Metabolic Profiling of Impaired Cognitive Function in Patients Receiving Dialysis.

Retention of uremic metabolites is a proposed cause of cognitive impairment in patients with ESRD. We used metabolic profiling to identify and validate uremic metabolites associated with impairment in executive function in two cohorts of patients receiving maintenance dialysis. We performed metabolic profiling using liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry applied to predialysis plasma samples from a discovery cohort of 141 patients and an independent replication cohort of 180 patients participating in a trial of frequent hemodialysis.

Cognitive Impairment and Progression of CKD.

Background: Cognitive impairment is common among patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD); however, its prognostic significance is unclear. We assessed the independent association between cognitive impairment and CKD progression in adults with mild to moderate CKD.

Study Design: Prospective cohort.

Chronic kidney disease, cerebral blood flow, and white matter volume in hypertensive adults.

Objective: To determine the relation between markers of kidney disease-estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and urine albumin to creatinine ratio (UACR)-with cerebral blood flow (CBF) and white matter volume (WMV) in hypertensive adults.

Methods: We used baseline data collected from 665 nondiabetic hypertensive adults aged ≥50 years participating in the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT). We used arterial spin labeling to measure CBF and structural 3T images to segment tissue into normal and abnormal WMV.

Genetic associations at 53 loci highlight cell types and biological pathways relevant for kidney function.

Reduced glomerular filtration rate defines chronic kidney disease and is associated with cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. We conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), combining data across 133,413 individuals with replication in up to 42,166 individuals. We identify 24 new and confirm 29 previously identified loci.

Anemia and risk for cognitive decline in chronic kidney disease.

Background: Anemia is common among patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) but its health consequences are poorly defined. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between anemia and cognitive decline in older adults with CKD.

Methods: We studied a subgroup of 762 adults age ≥55 years with CKD participating in the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) study.

A survey of views and practice patterns of dialysis medical directors toward end-of-life decision making for patients with end-stage renal disease.

Background: Patients with end-stage renal disease report infrequent end-of-life discussions, and nephrology trainees report feeling unprepared for end-of-life decision making, but the views of dialysis medical directors have not been studied.

Aim: Our objective is to understand dialysis medical directors' views and practice patterns on end-of-life decision making for patients with ESRD.

Design: We administered questionnaires to dialysis medical directors during medical director meetings of three different dialysis organizations in 2013.

The Vital Role of Pathology in Improving Reproducibility and Translational Relevance of Aging Studies in Rodents.

Pathology is a discipline of medicine that adds great benefit to aging studies of rodents by integrating in vivo, biochemical, and molecular data. It is not possible to diagnose systemic illness, comorbidities, and proximate causes of death in aging studies without the morphologic context provided by histopathology. To date, many rodent aging studies do not utilize end points supported by systematic necropsy and histopathology, which leaves studies incomplete, contradictory, and difficult to interpret.

Epidemiology and Public Health Concerns of CKD in Older Adults.

CKD is increasingly common in older adults. Estimating the glomerular filtration rate can be challenging in this population, with sarcopenia affecting the accuracy of various formulae. Competing risks of death influence the risk of progression to end-stage kidney disease.

Heritability of complex white matter diffusion traits assessed in a population isolate.

Introduction: Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) methods can noninvasively ascertain cerebral microstructure by examining pattern and directions of water diffusion in the brain. We calculated heritability for DWI parameters in cerebral white (WM) and gray matter (GM) to study the genetic contribution to the diffusion signals across tissue boundaries.

Methods: Using Old Order Amish (OOA) population isolate with large family pedigrees and high environmental homogeneity, we compared the heritability of measures derived from three representative DWI methods targeting the corpus callosum WM and cingulate gyrus GM: diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), the permeability-diffusivity (PD) model, and the neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI) model.