Background Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a well-recognised complication of cardiac catheterisation and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). However, the incidence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) after catheterisation and PCI has not been fully evaluated. A number of risk factors have been implicated in the development of AKI following cardiac catheterisation. Transradial access could lead to a lower incidence of CKD after catheterisation or PCI because of less catheter contact with aortic atheroma, and reduced potential for atheroembolism.

Objective To determine the incidence of CKD onset and its association with arterial access in patients after cardiac catheterisation or PCI.

Methods and results Linkages between the British Columbia (BC) Cardiac Registry (N=69 214) patients who underwent catheterisation or PCI between 1999 and 2005 and the BC Renal Database were determined. Within 6 months after the cardiac procedure 0.4% of patients developed dialysis dependency, 0.2% in the transradial versus 0.4% in the transfemoral group (p<0.0001); 0.3% of patients developed stage 4 or 5 CKD, 0.1% in the transradial versus 0.4% in the transfemoral group (p<0.0001); 0.9% of patients developed new CKD, 0.2% in the transradial versus 1.2% in the transfemoral group (p<0.0001). After adjusting for baseline characteristics the femoral access site had an OR of 4.36 (95% CI 2.48 to 7.66) for the development of the composite end point of new dialysis, new stage 4 or 5 CKD or new CKD.

Conclusions In this large database of current practice coronary catheterisation and PCI, the incidence of CKD onset within 6 months of the procedure was 0.9%. The transradial access site is associated with less CKD than the femoral approach.