Vascular calcification in patients with chronic kidney disease on dialysis in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study.

The study aimed to provide a unique nationwide data and a valuable update on the current situation of vascular calcification (VC) among chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study included all patients diagnosed with CKD over a period of one year and six months from September 2015 to February 2017 and underwent dialysis. All analyses were done using IBM-SPSS. Of the 842 enrolled patients, 836 (99.3%) constituted the descriptive population. The mean age of patients was 51.8 ± 15.4 years. A total of 759 (90.8%) patients had cardiovascular risk factors. The prevalence of VC in patients with CKD is 40.8%. In the multivariate analysis, prognostic factors for VC were physical inactivity with odd ratio 2.87 [95% confidence interval (CI): (1.89-4.63), P < 0.01], history of ischemic heart disease 2.34 [95% CI: (1.30-4.22), P < 0.01], dyslipidemia 1.56 [95% CI: (1.01-2.40), P = 0.04], and older age 1.06 [95% CI: (1.05-1.07), P <0.01]. At inclusion, the mean ± standard deviation for high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low cholesterol, total cholesterol, and triglycerides was 41 ± 30, 79.7 ± 29.9, 144.2 ± 38.5, and 143.4 ± 95.3 mg/dL, respectively. This study reports useful information about the prevalence of VCs in CKD stage 5D in a Middle Eastern country as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, it offers information on the predictors or associated factors of a VC in CKD patients.