Suboptimal monitoring and management in patients with unrecorded stage 3 chronic kidney disease in real-world settings: Insights from REVEAL-CKD

Background

Clinical practice guidelines for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) recommend regular monitoring and management of kidney function and CKD risk factors. However, the majority of patients with stage 3 CKD lack a diagnosis code, and data on the implementation of these recommendations in the real world are limited.

Aim

To assess the implementation of guideline-directed monitoring and management practices in the real world in patients with stage 3 CKD without a recorded diagnosis code.

Methods

REVEAL-CKD (NCT04847531) is a multinational, observational study of patients with stage 3 CKD. Eligible patients had ≥2 consecutive estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) measurements indicative of stage 3 CKD recorded >90 and ≤730 days apart, lacked an International Classification of Diseases 9/10 diagnosis code corresponding to CKD any time before and up to 6 months after the second eGFR measurement. Testing of key measures of care quality were assessed.

Results

The study included 435,971 patients from 9 countries. In all countries, the prevalence of urinary albumin–creatinine ratio and albuminuria testing was low. Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, angiotensin receptor blocker and statin prescriptions were highly variable, and sodium–glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitor prescriptions remained below 21%. Blood pressure measurements were recorded in 20.2%–89.9% of patients.

Conclusions

Overall, a large proportion of patients with evidence of stage 3 CKD did not receive recommended, guideline-directed monitoring and management. The variability in standard of care among countries demonstrates a clear opportunity to improve monitoring and management of these patients, most likely improving long-term outcomes.