The prevalence of coronary artery stenosis (CAS) at the initiation of renal replacement therapy (RRT) in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and no previous history of angina and/or myocardial infarction (MI) has not been fully elucidated. The prevalence of significant CAS was evaluated in 30 asymptomatic stage 5 CKD patients without a history of angina and/or MI by coronary angiography at the initiation of RRT. The correlations of various parameters with the prevalence of CAS were also examined. Atherosclerotic surrogate markers, including intima-media thickness of carotid artery and ankle-brachial BP index (ABI), were also evaluated. Significant CAS (>50% stenosis) was seen in 16 (53.3%) of 30 asymptomatic CKD patients on coronary angiography at the start of RRT. Stress cardiac scintigraphy was not effective for detecting hidden cardiac ischemia among the CKD patients. Univariate analysis showed that diabetes (P ‫؍‬ 0.01), left ventricular mass index (P ‫؍‬ 0.04), hyperlipidemia (P ‫؍‬ 0.04), total cholesterol (P ‫؍‬ 0.02), LDL cholesterol (P < 0.01), intima-media thickness (P ‫؍‬ 0.04), and fibrinogen (P ‫؍‬ 0.01) were positively correlated with the presence of CAS, whereas ABI (P < 0.01) showed a negative correlation with CAS. Stepwise logistic regression analysis revealed that diabetes and fibrinogen were significant and independent risk factors for CAS in asymptomatic CKD patients who started RRT. The results clearly demonstrated that despite the absence of cardiac events, stage 5 CKD patients are already in a very high risk group for CAS at the initiation of RRT, which was also closely associated with a significant decrease in ABI.

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Present quantitative analysis clearly provided the first evidence that arterial calcification of lower limbs' arteries was closely associated with the prevalence and severity of PAD in HD patients. Furthermore, arterial calcification of below-knee arteries and micro-inflammation represented as CRP were the independent associating factors for low TBI, which was the independent associating factor for PAD and CLI in HD patients.

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