Vascular calcification and bone mineral density in recurrent kidney stone formers.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Recent epidemiologic studies have provided evidence for an association between nephrolithiasis and cardiovascular disease, although the underlying mechanism is still unclear. Vascular calcification (VC) is a strong predictor of cardiovascular morbidity and the hypothesis explored in this study is that VC is more prevalent in calcium kidney stone formers (KSFs). The aims of this study were to determine (1) whether recurrent calcium KSFs have more VC and osteoporosis compared with controls and (2) whether hypercalciuria is related to VC in KSFs. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS: This is a retrospective, matched case-control study that included KSFs attending an outpatient nephrology clinic of the Royal Free Hospital (London, UK) from 2011 to 2014. Age- and sex-matched non-stone formers were drawn from a list of potential living kidney donors from the same hospital. A total of 111 patients were investigated, of which 57 were KSFs and 54 were healthy controls. Abdominal aortic calcification (AAC) and vertebral bone mineral density (BMD) were assessed using available computed tomography (CT) imaging. The prevalence, severity, and associations of AAC and CT BMD between KSFs and non-stone formers were compared. RESULTS: Mean age was 47±14 years in KSFs and 47±13 in non-stone formers. Men represented 56% and 57% of KSFs and non-stone formers, respectively. The prevalence of AAC was similar in both groups (38% in KSFs versus 35% in controls, P=0.69). However, the AAC severity score (median [25th percentile, 75th percentile]) was significantly higher in KSFs compared with the control group (0 [0, 43] versus 0 [0, 10], P<0.001). In addition, the average CT BMD was significantly lower in KSFs (159±53 versus 194 ±48 Hounsfield units, P<0.001). A multivariate model adjusted for age, sex, high BP, diabetes, smoking status, and eGFR confirmed that KSFs have higher AAC scores and lower CT BMD compared with non-stone formers (P<0.001 for both). Among stone formers, the association between AAC score and hypercalciuria was not statistically significant (P=0.86). CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that patients with calcium kidney stones suffer from significantly higher degrees of aortic calcification than age- and sex-matched non-stone formers, suggesting that VC may be an underlying mechanism explaining reported associations between nephrolithiasis and cardiovascular disease. Moreover, bone demineralization is more prominent in KSFs. However, more data are needed to confirm the possibility of potentially common underlying mechanisms leading to extraosseous calcium deposition and osteoporosis in KSFs.

Left ventricular dysfunction and outcome at two-year follow-up in patients with type 2 diabetes: The DYDA study.

AIMS: Left ventricular dysfunction (LVD) in type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) (DYDA) study is a prospective investigation enrolling 960 with DM without overt cardiac disease. At baseline, a high prevalence of LVD was detected by analysing midwall shortening. We report here the incidence of clinical events in DYDA patients after 2-year follow-up and the frequency of LVD detected at baseline and 2-year evaluation. METHODS: Systolic LVD was defined as midwall shortening ≤15%, diastolic LVD as any condition different from "normal diastolic function" identified as E/A ratio on Doppler mitral flow between 0.75 and 1.5 and deceleration time of E wave >140 ms. Major outcome was a composite of major events, including all-causes death and hospital admissions. RESULTS: During the study period, any systolic/diastolic LVD was found in 616 of 699 patients (88.1%) in whom LVD function could be measured at baseline or at 2 years. Older age and high HbA1c predicted the occurrence of LVD. During the follow-up 15 patients died (1.6%), 3 for cardiovascular causes, 139 were hospitalized (14.5%, 43 of them for cardiovascular causes, 20 for a new cancer). CONCLUSIONS: During a 2-year follow-up any LVD is detectable in a large majority of patients with DM without overt cardiac disease. Older age and higher HbA1c predict LVD. All-cause death or hospitalization occurred in 15% of patients, cardiovascular cause was uncommon. Independent predictors of events were older age, pathologic lipid profile, high HbA1c, claudicatio and repaglinide therapy. Echo-assessed LVD at baseline was not prognosticator of events.