Paricalcitol Effect on Anemia in CKD

Summary

Current activated Vitamin D therapies are approved for treating secondary hyperparathyroidism in chronic kidney disease (CKD), and a large body of experimental data in animals confirms the effects of Vitamin D that extend beyond mineral metabolism. Several studies show that the benefits are greater with the newer vitamin D analog paricalcitol when compared with calcitriol. A large gap exists in our knowledge between epidemiological studies in human that demonstrate improved outcomes with vitamin D use and observations in preclinical studies demonstrating the pleiotropic effects of Vitamin D. To explore the provenance of epidemiological outcomes in CKD, we conducted a pilot randomized trial to determine whether the use of paricalcitol, compared to calcitriol, leads to improvement in anemia, a marker associated with worse outcomes in chronic kidney disease, and whether this effect not only reflects the hyperparathyroidism correction, but is also dependent on the direct effects of paricalcitol on erythroid progenitor cells.

Timeline

Start

2010-10

Primary completion

2011-03

Completion

2012-10

Publications

• Riccio E, Sabbatini M, Bruzzese D, Capuano I, Migliaccio S, Andreucci M, Pisani A. Effect of paricalcitol vs calcitriol on hemoglobin levels in chronic kidney disease patients: a randomized trial. PLoS One. 2015 Mar 17;10(3):e0118174. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0118174. eCollection 2015.

Drugs

Indications