Use of neck circumference as a predictor of cardiovascular risk in chronic kidney patients undergoing haemodialysis who are candidates for transplantation

Patients undergoing haemodialysis are at great cardiovascular risk. Neck circumference (NC) is a simple and low-cost measure for estimating this risk precociously. The present study aimed to evaluate whether the cardiovascular risk obtained by NC is associated with the main cardiometabolic risk factors in patients on haemodialysis treatment who are on a waiting list for transplantation.A cross-sectional study was conducted including 96 patients in a single transplantation centre. Socio-demographic, clinical-laboratory and anthropometric data were collected. NC was considered as a dependent variable and the independent variables were body mass index (BMI), fasting glycaemia and lipid profile, triglyceride and high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (TGL/HDL-C) ratio, and triglyceride and glycaemia (TyG) index. For the comparison of averages, we used Mann-Whitney and Student's t tests, as well as one-way analysis of variance and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression was performed for the association between NC and cardiometabolic risk factors. p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.There were higher BMI averages, blood glucose, triglycerides (TGL), TGL/HDL-C ratio and TyG index in the tertile 3 of the NC, whereas the HDL-C decreased as the tertile increased. There was a statistically significant risk of cardiovascular disease that was asscoiated, according to NC, with being overweight, high levels of TGL, TGL/HDL-C, TyG index and low HDL-C.NC is shown to be associated with cardiometabolic risk factors in kidney patients undergoing haemodialysis who are on a transplant waiting list.