Kidney Disease Marta Crespo and Clara Barrios

Cardiovascular risk and hypertension: resistant arterial hypertension; cardiovascular risk associated with obesity; cardiovascular risk and kidney donation

Development of strategies aimed at improving control and reducing the risk of patients with resistant, secondary or special populations, consolidated by the ISCIII and funded through clinical trial EC11-426 on renal sympathetic denervation vs. intensification of pharmacological treatment in resistant HTN, and with a FIS-ISCIII project for the period 2017-2019 (PI of both, Dr. Anna Oliveras), aimed at implementing an action plan to improve compliance in patients with difficult-to-control HTN.

A prospective study has been developed in morbidly obese patients undergoing bariatric surgery, analysing haemodynamic changes and organ involvement, as well as their possible mechanisms, hormonal, inflammatory, endocannabinoid and serotoninergic systems, among others, funded with a clinical research grant (Spanish Society of Nephrology, PI: Dr. Oliveras).

Within this area, Dr. Laia Sans developed her doctoral thesis on early vascular damage in young people with polycystic kidney disease.

In addition, Dr. Susana Vázquez wrote her doctoral thesis on haemodynamic and hormonal predictors, especially the RAS, of preeclamptic vs. normal gestation.

As a common objective of the Nephrology service's arterial hypertension and renal transplant care areas, since 2016 a project has been underway for the longitudinal assessment of cardiovascular risk using non-conventional tools in living kidney donors. The group's interest in this area was prompted by uncertainty that has emerged over the last decade about a potential increase in cardiovascular and renal risk in individuals who donate a kidney.

Kidney donors who volunteered to participate in the study were subjected to complementary cardiovascular assessment using biochemical and mechanical (pulse wave, central aortic pressure) markers of endothelial dysfunction before and after kidney donation. In addition, the assessment of isotopic renal function and the value of function estimation formulas before and after donation, and in comparison to the function achieved in the respective recipients, has already generated publications.