Impact of vascular calcification on cardiovascular mortality in hemodialysis patients: clinical significance, mechanisms and possible strategies for treatment

Vascular calcification has now been recognized as a major problem in dialysis patients because of its strong influence on the prognosis. Along with the regulatory failure of calcification-inhibitory system, active phenotypic change of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) to osteoblast-like cells is also involved in the progression of vascular calcification. Delaying or improving the vascular calcification is thought to be very important to improve the cardiovascular mortality in dialysis patients. Several interventional trials against vascular calcification using non-calcium-containing phosphate binders, low-dose active vitamin D plus cinacalcet, modification of dialysate calcium concentration, and sodium thiosulfate have been done, and some trials including non-calcium-containing phosphate binders showed beneficial effect on delaying vascular calcification in dialysis patients. However, delaying or improving vascular calcification has not been clearly proved to result in improved cardiovascular event and/or mortality rate by prospective interventional randomized controlled trials in dialysis patients. Whether the improvement of vascular calcification could directly lead to the improvement of survival is an urgent issue of clinical trials in dialysis patients.