Why Increasing Uptake of Kidney-Protective Drugs Requires a Team

Tim Pflederer, MD, chief medical officer for Evergreen Nephrology, discussed how sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists have reshaped chronic kidney disease (CKD) care and what it takes to get eligible patients on therapy. CKD rarely travels alone, he explained; its growing overlap with diabetes and heart failure makes it better understood as cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome, which both drug classes treat across. Most patients with CKD benefit, and the prescribing question is risk of progression rather than diabetes status.