Lipids, Blood Pressure, Kidney-what was New in 2012?

The year 2012 has been extremely interesting concerning new findings on diagnosis, management and therapy of dyslipidaemia, hypertension and kidney disease. Looking at recent lipid disorders studies, two issues have seemed to be especially important-searching for new potent biomarkers of lipid disorders (including studies on dysfunctional High Density Lipoprotein [HDL] cholesterol, as well as subfractions/subpopulations of HDL/Low Density Lipoprotein [LDL] cholesterol) and research on new lipid disorders drugs, especially concerning proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors, which seem to be very potent in LDL-C lowering. Within the past year, there has been also growing clinical and research progress in hypertension management, especially concerning Resistant Hypertension (RH). In 2012, many important studies on Renal denervation (RDN), as a method of RH therapy have been published, including the ones with patients with different concomitant diseases (e.g., Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)), as well as with longer follow-up. On the basis of the available data RDN has gained an important role in RH treatment and has recently been introduced to clinical practice. November 2012 has been critical for new nephrology data, as the most important trails were presented during American Society of Nephrology (ASN) Congress in San Diego. They concerned among others, the problems of secondary hyperparathyroidism management in CKD patients, new data on transplantations (e.g., glucocorticoid avoidance strategy), nephro cardiology (stepped pharmacotherapy algorithm vs. ultrafiltration in heart failure patients with CKD), as well as acute kidney injury and diabetic nephropathy (new data on bardoxolone methyl).