DiaSorin, a diagnostics company, recently sponsored a free educational webinar called “PTH Testing in Chronic Kidney Disease Patients,” which reviewed the biochemistry behind calcium regulation and clarified the importance of the parathyroid hormone and vitamin D in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients.
The parathyroid hormone (PTH) controls calcium and phosphorus levels in the blood, and tests that measure its levels are used to help identify hyperparathyroidism, abnormal calcium levels, or to check the status of chronic kidney disease.
After defining the various stages of CKD, the webinar focused on the importance of monitoring patients who have progressed to end stage renal disease, and of monitoring these patients’ PTH to understand if therapies are working. The discussion also clarified the clinical benefits of using 1-84 PTH versus intact levels to monitor the progression of CKD. Intact parathyroid hormone assays, the webinar noted, overestimate actual PTH as they cross-react with non (1-84) PTH fragments that accumulate in renal failure.
Kevin Martin, MD, MB, BCh, FASN, director of the Division of Nephrology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, who also chaired the General Medicine B Study Section of the National Institutes of Health, was the event’s speaker. Dr. Martin’s research interests involve studying the parathyroid hormone and the metabolism of vitamin D, and secondary hyperparathyroidism. He has 230 scientific publications in specialised journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, The American Journal of Kidney Diseases, Kidney International, and Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
The webinar was hosted by LabRoots.
Hypertension is a common condition in chronic kidney disease (CDK) patients. Tight control of blood pressure is recommended to reduce premature cardiovascular disease in patients who undergo dialysis, but primary results of randomized controlled trials have so far failed to show any impact of lower blood pressure on the progression of kidney disease.
Researchers at the University of California determined recently that strict blood pressure control does not delay the onset of end-stage renal disease, but may lower mortality after its onset in CKD patients. Their analysis of two clinical trials (1995-2012), was published in the Journal of American Society of Nephrology under the title “BP Control and Long-Term Risk of ESRD and Mortality.”