Aortic stiffness and proteinuria are cardiovascular risk factors. In several populations an association has been described between these factors. However, age is a strong determinant for both risk factors complicating the insight in dependencies. Therefore, we aimed to investigate whether dependencies between aortic stiffness and proteinuria exist in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) as in these patients renal disease is the leading cause for proteinuria.

In a cross-sectional setting 144 patients with severe to mild CKD (estimated Glomerular filtration rate (eGFR): >15 - ≤90 ml/min/1.73m² or bioptically proven renal disease) were investigated for aortic stiffness measured by carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (C-F PWV) and proteinuria as determined by protein-creatinine ratio from morning spot urine. In stepwise linear regression analysis, C-F PWV predicted protein-creatinine ratio and vice versa. The diagnosis of proteinuria (≥ 200 mg protein/g creatinine) was an independent predictor of C-F PWV, whereas C-F PWV did not predict the diagnosis of proteinuria.

This study demonstrates that the extent of aortic stiffness and proteinuria predict each other in a cohort of CKD similar to other populations. However, if the diagnosis of proteinuria is used as variable only apparent proteinuria predicts aortic stiffness, but not vice versa. This suggests that aortic stiffness is not consistently predicting proteinuria in CKD patients.