Treatment disparities in acute coronary syndromes, heart failure, and kidney disease.

It has been consistently observed that patients with renal dysfunction have more premature, severe, complicated, and fatal cardiovascular disease than age- and sex-matched individuals with normal renal function. There have been 4 major explanations for this finding: (1) positive confounding by third variables associated with chronic kidney disease (CKD), including diabetes mellitus and hypertension; (2) therapeutic nihilism or lesser use of beneficial therapies in CKD; (3) greater toxicities of therapies, such as bleeding from anticoagulants or contrast-induced kidney injury; (4) biological factors which result directly from CKD that work to promote and accelerate cardiovascular disease. In this paper, we focus on the issue of treatment disparities or therapeutic nihilism and its contribution to poor outcomes in the setting of acute coronary syndromes and acutely decompensated heart failure. This issue is important because if we can overcome barriers to the utilization of beneficial treatments, then clinical outcomes should improve over time.