FRIDAY, April 24, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- For patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), cognitive impairment (CI) is associated with worse outcomes, according to a study published in the May issue of Kidney International Reports.
Hélène Levassort, M.D., from the Assistance Publique -- Hôpitaux de Paris, and colleagues examined the specific impact of CI on adverse outcomes in CKD in a cohort that included 3,033 patients with CKD stage 2 to 5 and five years of follow-up. The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) was used to assess CI.
The analysis included 3,004 patients; at baseline, 64, 23, and 13 percent had MMSE scores >26, 24 to 26, and <24, respectively. The researchers found that 21.5 percent of patients initiated kidney replacement therapy (KRT) during the mean follow-up period of 3.87 years; 13.4 percent died and 15.3 percent experienced a major adverse cardiovascular event (MACE) before KRT or noncardiovascular death. Compared with those with MMSE >26, those with MMSE <24 had a higher risk for clinical adverse outcome in adjusted Cox models (hazard ratios, 1.42, 1.57, and 1.32 for KRT initiation, all-cause mortality, and MACE, respectively). In the group with MMSE of 24 to 26, CI was associated with all-cause mortality (hazard ratio, 1.45).
"Our present findings highlight the prognostic value of cognitive status in CKD and suggest that a systematic cognitive assessment would be of relevance in routine nephrology care," the authors write.
CKD-REIN is supported by a public-private partnership, with funding from 10 listed pharmaceutical companies; two authors disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.