The Hospital General Universitario de Elche has set up a joint cardiorenal pathology unit that will provide care to approximately 150 new patients a year.
According to the head of the Cardiology Service, Pedro Morillas, “both organs, heart and kidney, are interrelated in their functioning and any affectation of one of them will secondarily affect the other”.
“On the one hand, the kidney is in charge of controlling the volume of body fluids, which directly affects the blood that leaves the heart. On the other hand, the heart is the pump that is in charge of taking the blood to the kidney in order to that it can filter and purify it, both necessary functions to maintain life”, he explained.
Many of these patients with heart disease usually also have kidney function problems, which complicates treatment and their prognosis in the short and medium term. In fact, it is estimated that approximately 40% of patients with heart failure have some degree of kidney disease.
“This relationship is so close that there are diseases capable of causing an affectation of both organs simultaneously, and not only that, but when one of the two organs presents some type of alteration, either acutely or chronically, this it directly affects the other organ, setting in motion pathophysiological pathways whose objective is to restore a correct interrelationship between them”, Morillas assured.
“Patients with cardiorenal disease present a highly complex entity in terms of their management, so the creation of a joint unit with expert professionals in both organs, cardiologist and nephrologist, is a necessity that will allow more efficient management of these patients”, has detailed the specialist.
The head of the Nephrology Service, Luis Jiménez del Cerro, added that “the good coordination and predisposition of both services has made it possible to create the cardiorenal unit.”
Personalised attention
The head of the Heart Failure Unit of the Elche hospital, Antonio García Honrubia, explained that “today we have a very powerful therapeutic arsenal for patients with heart failure whose heart strength is reduced and the treatment it has to be progressively established in a specialized unit since it requires frequent visits and close controls, especially of blood pressure, renal function and ions”. “One of the most important limitations both for pharmacological treatment and for invasive procedures in cardiology It is kidney involvement.
As the cardiologist Nuria Vicente and the nephrologist Diana Tordera have stated, “having a joint consultation with a cardiologist and a nephrologist on the same visit will improve the care and comprehensive clinical approach of patients with cardiorenal syndrome, allowing personalized attention, improving communication and coordination between the specialists involved, as well as reducing the number of consultations that a patient has”.
“The experience and feedback that we are receiving from patients in these two months of implementation is very gratifying, allowing a joint and multiparametric evaluation that is so necessary given the complexity they present. Likewise, having a nephrologist in the consultation will allow us to identify patients with heart failure refractory to diuretic treatment earlier with the possibility of inclusion in the peritoneal dialysis program at the expense of Dr. Millán del Valle, nephrologist. from the hospital”, the specialists have concluded.
Cardiovascular diseases, especially heart failure, constitute one of the main health problems in developed countries, with a progressive and unstoppable increase in recent years due to poor lifestyle habits in terms of eating, smoking and sedentary lifestyles, and aging itself. of the population.
