BackgroundHyperuricemia may contribute to renal injury. We do not know whether use of treatments that lower urate reduce the progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and cardiovascular disease. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials to assess the benefits and risks of treatments that lower urate in patients with stages 3-5 CKD.MethodsWe searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL, Web of Science and trial registers for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) without language restriction. Two authors independently screened articles, assessed risk of bias and extracted data. Data obtained included serum uric acid, serum creatinine or other estimates of glomerular filtration rate, incidence of end-stage renal disease (ESRD), systolic and diastolic blood pressure, proteinuria, cardiovascular disease and adverse events.ResultsFrom the 5497 citations screened, 19 RCTs enrolling 992 participants met our inclusion criteria. Given significant heterogeneity in duration of follow-up and study comparators, only trials greater than 3 months comparing allopurinol and inactive control were meta-analyzed using random effects models. Pooled estimate for eGFR was in favour of allopurinol with a mean difference (MD) of 3.2 ml/min/1.73 m2, 95% CI 0.16-6.2 ml/min/1.73 m2, p = 0.039 and this was consistent with results for serum creatinine. Statistically significant reductions in serum uric acid, systolic and diastolic blood pressure were found, favouring allopurinol. There were insufficient data on adverse events, incidence of ESRD and cardiovascular disease for analysis.ConclusionsAdequately powered RCTs are needed to establish whether treatments that lower urate have beneficial renal and cardiovascular effects.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12882-015-0047-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Background and objectivesRestless legs syndrome (RLS) is common amongst patients receiving dialysis. It is unclear how to optimally treat RLS in dialysis patients. We conducted a systematic review to identify therapies to reduce the severity of RLS.MethodsWe systematically searched MEDLINE and EMBASE and hand searched narrative reviews for randomized controlled trials that assessed the use of pharmacological or non-pharmacological interventions to reduce the severity of RLS among patients receiving dialysis. The primary outcome was RLS symptoms.ResultsOf 621 abstracts identified, 12 studies that included 13 interventions met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. All trials reported interventions that significantly improved RLS severity. The interventions included dopamine agonists (n=6), gabapentin (n=2), intradialytic exercise (n=2) intravenous iron (n=1), vitamins C and E (n=1), and clonidine (n=1). In studies that compared two interventions, ropinirole gabapentin, and intradialytic exercise with resistance were all more effective than L-dopa in comparisons. However, all studies were at high risk of bias with the most common causes due to lack of allocation concealment, high losses to follow-up, and missing data. Further, follow-up for these studies was short-term ranging from 3 days to 24 weeks.ConclusionsRopinirole, gabapentin, and intradialytic exercise appear promising to reduce RLS in dialysis patients. However, methodologically rigorous, appropriately powered, longer term RCTs are required to determine the optimal treatment strategy for RLS among dialysis patients.