Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh
WASHINGTON — Use of the sucroferric oxyhydroxide binder by Fresenius Medical Care Renal Therapies Group, Velphoro, was effective in lowering serum phosphorus levels for patients in their first year of hemodialysis therapy, according to results presented here.
“This is the first study that highlights new patients whose phosphorus is being controlled by sucroferric oxyhydroxide,” Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh, MD, of the University of California Irvine School of Medicine, and lead author on the study, told Healio Nephrology.
Adult patients on incident hemodialysis were included in the database if they were prescribed sucroferric oxyhydroxide (SO) between April 1, 2014 to Sept. 30, 2017 and had not been previously using a phosphate binder.
“All clinical data was extracted from Fresenius Kidney Care electronic health records, deidentified, and averaged over each quarter (Q1-Q8). Mixed effects linear regression and Cochran’s Q test were used for statistical significance testing,” the authors wrote.
The 59 patients on incident hemodialysis in the study had a mean age of 56 years and time on dialysis was 7.3 months at baseline. After SO initiation, the authors reported, overall mean serum phosphorus (sP) decreased by 0.7 mg/dl.
“The percentage of patients achieving sP [of at least] 5.5 mg/dl increased from 36.5% at [baseline] to a high of 64.9%,” the authors wrote. “After limiting to patients with a baseline of sP [greater than] 5.5 mg/dl, mean sP decreased by 1 mg/dl, from 6.86 to 5.86 mg/dl, with a high of 48.4% of patients achieving sP [of at least] 5.5 mg/dl.”
Kalantar-Zadeh told Healio Nephrology that the pill burden was significantly less with sucroferric oxyhydroxide, with about 4.9 to 5.9 pills needed per day compared to 9.1 pills for other binders.
“SO is an effective first-line [phosphate binder] PB therapy with least pill burden,” the researchers wrote. –by Mark E. Neumann
Reference:
Kalantar-Zadeh K, et al. Abstract FR-PO151. Presented at: ASN Kidney Week; Nov. 7-10, 2019; Washington, D.C.
Disclosure: Kalantar-Zadeh reports he is a medical director for Fresenius Medical Care.
