Clinical Outcomes Among High-Risk Primary Care Patients With Diabetic Kidney Disease: Methodological Challenges and Results From the STOP-DKD Study

Background/objective: Slowing the progression of diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is critical. We conducted a randomized controlled trial to target risk factors for DKD progression.

Methods: We evaluated the effect of a pharmacist-led intervention focused on supporting healthy behaviors, medication management, and self-monitoring on decline in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) for 36 months compared with an educational control.

Results: We randomized 138 individuals to the intervention group and 143 to control. At baseline, mean (SD) eGFR was 80.7 (21.7) mL/min/1.73m 2 , 56% of participants had chronic kidney disease and a history of uncontrolled hypertension with a baseline SBP of 134.3 mm Hg. The mean (SD) decline in eGFR by cystatin C from baseline to 36 months was 5.0 (19.6) and 5.9 (18.6) mL/min/1.73m 2 for the control and intervention groups, respectively, with no significant between-group difference ( P =0.75).

Conclusions: We did not observe a significant difference in clinical outcomes by study arm. However, we showed that individuals with DKD will engage in a pharmacist-led intervention. The potential explanations for a lack of change in DKD risk factors can be attributed to 5 broad issues, challenges: (1) associated with enrolling patients with low eGFR and poor BP control; (2) implementing the intervention; (3) limited duration during which to observe any clinical benefit from the intervention; (4) potential co-intervention or contamination; and (5) low statistical power.