KDIGO 2024 Clinical Practice Guideline for the Evaluation and Management of Chronic Kidney Disease in Children and Adults: a commentary from the European Renal Best Practice (ERBP)

Abstract

The Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) 2024 Guideline for Identification and Management of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is a welcome development, coming 12 years after the paradigm-changing 2012 guidelines. We are living in an unprecedented era in nephrology with novel therapies, including sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists and non-steroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists, now being proven in multiple randomized controlled clinical trials to reduce both the progression of CKD and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The KDIGO 2024 CKD Guideline is aimed at a broad audience looking after children and adults with CKD and provide practical and actionable steps to improve care. This commentary reviews the guideline sections pertaining to the evaluation and risk assessment of individuals with CKD from a European perspective. We feel that despite the last guideline being published 12 years ago, and the fact that the assessment of CKD has been emphasized by many other national/international nephrology, cardiology and diabetology guidelines and societies, the diagnosis and treatment of CKD remains poor across Europe. As such, the KDIGO 2024 CKD Guideline should be seen as an urgent call to action to improve diagnosis and care of children and adults with CKD across Europe. We know what we need to do. We now need to get on and do it.

Keywords: cardiovascular risk; children and young people; chronic kidney disease; guidelines.

Figure 1:

The special populations in terms of kidney health with important clinical considerations.