TY - JOUR A1 - Schneider, Andreas A1 - Gutjahr-Lengsfeld, Lena A1 - Ritz, Eberhard A1 - Scharnagl, Hubert A1 - Gelbrich, Götz A1 - Pilz, Stefan A1 - Macdougall, Iain C. A1 - Wanner, Christoph A1 - Drechsler, Christiane T1 - Longitudinal Assessments of Erythropoietin-Stimulating Agent Responsiveness and the Association with Specific Clinical Outcomes in Dialysis Patients JF - Nephron Clinical Practice N2 - Background: Dose requirements of erythropoietin-stimulating agents (ESAs) can vary considerably over time and may be associated with cardiovascular outcomes. We aimed to longitudinally assess ESA responsiveness over time and to investigate its association with specific clinical end points in a time-dependent approach. Methods: The German Diabetes and Dialysis study (4D study) included 1,255 diabetic dialysis patients, of whom 1,161 were receiving ESA treatment. In those patients, the erythropoietin resistance index (ERI) was assessed every 6 months during a median follow-up of 4 years. The association between the ERI and cardiovascular end points was analyzed by time-dependent Cox regression analyses with repeated ERI measures. Results: Patients had a mean age of 66 ± 8.2 years; 53% were male. During follow-up, a total of 495 patients died, of whom 136 died of sudden death and 102 of infectious death. The adjusted and time-dependent risk for sudden death was increased by 19% per 5-unit increase in the ERI (hazard ratio, HR = 1.19, 95% confidence interval, CI = 1.07-1.33). Similarly, mortality increased by 25% (HR = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.18-1.32) and infectious death increased by 27% (HR = 1.27, 95% CI = 1.13-1.42). Further analysis revealed that lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels were associated with lower ESA responsiveness (p = 0.046). Conclusions: In diabetic dialysis patients, we observed that time-varying erythropoietin resistance is associated with sudden death, infectious complications and all-cause mortality. Low 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels may contribute to a lower ESA responsiveness. KW - dialysis KW - erythropoietin KW - diabetes KW - epidemiology Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-196511 SN - 1660-2110 N1 - This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively. VL - 128 IS - 1-2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Volkert, Julia A1 - Zierhut, Kathrin C. A1 - Schiele, Miriam A. A1 - Wenzel, Martina A1 - Kopf, Juliane A1 - Kittel-Schneider, Sarah A1 - Reif, Andreas T1 - Predominant polarity in bipolar disorder and validation of the polarity index in a German sample N2 - Background: A large number of patients with bipolar disorder (BD) can be characterized by predominant polarity (PP), which has important implications for relapse prevention. Recently, Popovic et al. (EUR NEUROPSYCHOPHARM 22(5): 339–346, 2012) proposed the Polarity Index (PI) as a helpful tool in the maintenance treatment of BD. As a numeric expression, it reflects the efficacy of drugs used in treatment of BD. In the present retrospective study, we aimed to validate this Index in a large and well characterized German bipolar sample. Methods: We investigated 336 bipolar patients (BP) according to their PP and calculated the PI for each patient in order to prove if maintenance treatment differs according to their PP. Furthermore, we analysed whether PP is associated with demographic and clinical characteristics of BP. Results: In our sample, 63.9% of patients fulfilled criteria of PP: 169 patients were classified as depressive predominant polarity (DPP), 46 patients as manic predominant polarity (MPP). The two groups differed significantly in their drug regime: Patients with DPP were more often medicated with lamotrigine and antidepressants, patients with MPP were more often treated with lithium, valproate, carbamazepine and first generation antipsychotics. However, patients with DPP and MPP did not differ significantly with respect to the PI, although they received evidence-based and guideline-driven treatment. Conclusion: The reason for this negative finding might well be that for several drugs, which were used frequently, no PI value is available. Nevertheless we suggest PP as an important concept in the planning of BD maintenance treatment. KW - Bipolar disorder KW - Predominant polarity KW - Polarity index KW - Maintenance treatment KW - Depression KW - Mania KW - EBM Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-111042 ER -