Impact of the New K/DOQI Guidelines

During the course of developing clinical practice guidelines to improve outcomes of dialysis patients, it became evident that there existed an even greater opportunity to improve outcomes for all individuals with kidney disease, from the earliest stage of kidney injury through the entire spectrum of its progression to kidney failure, when replacement therapy becomes necessary. The development and adoption of a public health approach to the progressive course of chronic kidney disease could allow for the application of interventional strategies to prevent the loss of kidney function in some cases, to slow the progression of kidney disease in many others, and to ameliorate the complication or comorbidities in those with progressive kidney disease. In order to respond to this need, a new initiative, termed the Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (K/DOQI), was launched in January of 2000. This article summarizes the recommendations of the first three set of clinical practice guidelines being developed under this new initiative: Chronic Kidney Disease: Evaluation, Classification and Stratification; Bone Metabolism and Disease in Chronic Kidney Disease, and Dyslipidemias in Kidney Failure.