Every patient newly diagnosed with cardiovascular disease should be screened for chronic kidney disease using a blood test and a urine test, according to the first European Society of Cardiology guidelines devoted to the two conditions together.
The recommendation matters because the two conditions feed each other. Kidney disease accelerates heart disease, heart disease accelerates kidney disease, and each one worsens the outlook for the other. Yet the two have historically been managed by separate specialists working from separate documents.
