Anemia treatment and left ventricular hypertrophy in non-dialysis chronic kidney disease

To this day, the target hemoglobin level that minimi/es cardiovascular risk in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients remains unclear. When one examines the many randomized trials of epoetin therapy in aggregate, enhanced quality of life provides the most cogent argument for hemoglobin levels above 110 g/L. It remains unclear whether treatment of anemia im-proves longevity, or even a surrogate marker (such as left ven-tricular LV mass index), especially when applied at earlier phases of CKD.