RAAS Blockade as First-Line Antihypertensive Therapy among People with CKD (original) (raw)

Hypertension among people with chronic kidney disease is highly prevalent and remains often poorly controlled. To adequately control blood pressure (BP), a combination antihypertensive drug therapy is often required. The choice of the appropriate antihypertensive regimen should be individualized according to the patient clinical characteristics, the severity of chronic kidney disease (CKD), the levels at which BP should be targeted and the presence or absence of proteinuria. In proteinuric CKD, solid evidence from large-scaled randomized trials suggest that agents blocking the reninangiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) should be the antihypertensive therapy of first choice, given their superiority over the other antihypertensive drug classes in reducing proteinuria and delaying nephropathy progression to end-stage-renal-disease (ESRD). In contrast, inhibition of the RAAS is shown to have no additional benefits towards renoprotection in people with non-proteinuric CKD. Combined RAAS blockade as an alternative approach to gain additive reduction in proteinuria and greater retardation of renal function decline is shown to be associated with increased risk of hypotension, serious hyperkalemia and acute kidney injury. In this chapter, we discuss the role of RAAS blockade as first-line antihypertensive therapy among people with proteinuric and non-proteinuric nephropathy, providing an overview of the evidence derived from large-scaled renal outcome trials.