Thrombotic Risk Assessment in End Stage Renal Disease Patients on Renal Replacement Therapy

Abstract

End stage renal disease (ESRD) patients have an excess cardiovascular risk, above that predicted by traditional risk factor models. Despite the advances in both Cardiovascular disease (CVD) management and renal replacement therapy (RRT), there still is a major burden of cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in the chronic kidney disease (CKD) population. Declining renal function itself represents a continuum of cardiovascular risk and in those individuals who survive to reach ESRD, the risk of suffering a cardiac event is uncomfortably and unacceptably high. Pro-thrombotic status may contribute to this increased risk. Global thrombotic status assessment, including measurement of occlusion time (OT) the time taken to form an occlusive platelet rich thrombus and thrombolytic status (time taken to lyse such thrombus) as assessed by measuring Lysis Time (LT), may identify vulnerable patients. The aim of this study was to assess overall thrombotic status in ESRD and relate this to cardiovascular and peripheral thrombotic risk. Small sub studies were also planned to establish the effect of RRT modality on the thrombotic status.