Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects approximately 10% of adults worldwide. Compared to those without kidney disease, CKD patients have a substantially increased risk of morbidity and mortality from progressive kidney and cardiovascular disease. The care of patients with CKD is costly, yet despite the enormous cost of CKD there is remarkably little reliable information from adequately powered randomized trials to guide treatment.

The objective of this KDIGO conference was to gather a global panel of multi-disciplinary clinical and scientific expertise to identify key issues relevant to design and conduct of clinical trials in nephrology and to suggest how future randomized trials can be improved. The aim of the conference was not to generate specific recommendations for particular kidney diseases, but was instead to identify the barriers common to the design and conduct of the types of trials that are being planned, or likely to be planned, in patients with CKD. Some such barriers (e.g., treatment adherence) are likely to be common to most randomized trials, while other barriers (e.g., disease rarity) may be encountered particularly frequently in nephrology. The conference discussed examples and looked for solutions that might be considered for future trials in nephrology.

The KDIGO Clinical Trials Conference took place in Paris, France on September 8-11, 2016. Drs. Colin Baigent (University of Oxford, UK) and John McMurray (University of Glasgow, UK) co-chaired this conference.