ESKD Risk Tied to Retinal Age Gap

RETINAL AGE GAP, a marker of biological aging, may identify patients at increased risk for end-stage kidney disease (ESKD), investigators suggest.

“The retina has long been considered as a window to the kidney, as common microvascular structures, physiological pathways and pathogenic pathways are shared between the two organs, inextricably linking them in many diseases,” Zhuoting Zhu, MD PhD, of the Centre for Eye Research Australia in Melbourne, and colleagues explained. Common risk factors for retinal and kidney diseases include smoking, diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol.

They also observed: “The association of retinal age gap with incident ESKD could be interpreted as a byproduct of accelerated vascular ageing in kidney,” the authors wrote.

Using a deep learning prediction model, the investigators assessed future ESKD risk among 35,864 adults with retinal fundus images from the UK Biobank study. They calculated the retinal age gap for each individual, continued on page 12 of DAA therapies have “profoundly changed the landscape of HCV management in patients with CKD and necessitated an update to the KDIGO 2018 guideline on HCV in CKD,” Paul Martin, MD, of the Division of Digestive Health and Liver Diseases at