Consequences of chronic kidney disease are many and managing them is the hallmark of improving patient quality and quantity of life. Aside from continuous renal replacement therapy and renal transplants, management of azotemia, acid-base disorders, electrolytes, secondary hyperparathyroidism, nutrition, and hypertension are key.

Much has been recommended regarding nutrition in chronic disease and multiple commercial formulations are available. Goals for nutritional management of chronic kidney diseases are to reduce electrolyte and acid-base disorders, provide adequate caloric requirements, and to alleviate the negative effects of accumulating uremic products. As with all adjunctive therapies, the ultimate goal would be to slow progression of disease. There are a few recent studies that would suggest that there is some effect of nutrition on both duration and quality of survival in the feline population with chronic kidney disease.

Elliott et al (JSAP, 2000) showed that those cats fed either a renal diet as compared to a normal maintenance diet had a longer survival time. Electrolyte imbalances were not as prevalent in the renal diet group and BUN was decreased as well. However, one caveat is that those cats that would eat the renal diet were placed in the treatment group, those that would not eat it, were placed in the control group. It is reasonable to be concerned that those cats that would eat a renal diet may have had a better appetite to begin with, biasing the study. Improving upon that study, Ross et al (JAVMA, 2006) conducted a double blinded, randomized controlled clinical trial which showed an improvement in both the number of uremic crises and kidney disease related deaths over the course of the twenty-four month study.

Renal secondary hyperparathyroidisim is associated with decreased conversion of 25 hydroxycholecalciferol to the more active form, 1,25 dihydroxycholecalciferol (calcitriol), by the hydroxylase enzyme system in the kidney. The decrease in calcitriol leads to hypocalcemia, stimulating release of parathyroid hormone. Without caclcitriol to enhance calcium absorption, the parathyroid hormone is released at higher levels to achieve the same results. While not documented in the feline patient at this time, in other species, continued high levels of parathyroid hormone is associated with immunosuppression, renal toxicity, and glucose intolerance, and hyperlipidemia. The decreased enzyme activity is, to a small degree, associated with decreased renal function, but is more significantly impacted by prolonged hyperphosphatemia. Therefore, either controlling phosphate levels or increasing calcitriol levels should decrease the parathyroid hormone to normal levels. Historically, the benefits associated with calcitriol administration were mainly based on survey based information. However, more recently, an abstract presented at the ACVIM forum (Polzin et al, 2005) in dogs showed a reduction in mortality and improved survival time in dogs with chronic kidney disease. A study in the feline species (Hostutler, JVIM, 2005) did not demonstrate a decrease in parathyroid hormone levels in a small number of cats with naturally occurring kidney disease at either the standard daily dose (2.5 ng/kg PO q 24 hrs) or the extended dose schedule (8.75 ng/kg q 84 hrs). However, the study was short in duration and had only a small number of cats enrolled. It should be noted that parathyroid hormone levels were indeed greater in those cats with chronic kidney disease than those in the healthy control group. At this point, that is the extent of the data for calcitriol supplementation in naturally occurring disease in cats. Certainly optimal dosage levels, intervals, and perhaps formulations must be evaluated before determining if calcitriol therapy should be abandoned.