Association of digoxin with mortality in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease: A population-based cohort study

PLoS One. 2021 Jan 15;16(1):e0245620. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245620. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Digoxin is commonly prescribed for heart failure and atrial fibrillation, but there is limited data on its safety in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). We conducted a population-based cohort study using the pre-end stage renal disease (ESRD) care program registry and the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan. Of advanced CKD patient cohort (N = 31,933), we identified the digoxin user group (N = 400) matched with age and sex non-user group (N = 2,220). Multivariable Cox proportional hazards and sub-distribution hazards models were used to evaluate the association between digoxin use and the risk of death, cardiovascular events (acute coronary syndrome, ischemic stroke, or hemorrhagic stroke) and renal outcomes (ESRD, rapid decline in estimated glomerular filtration rate-eGFR, or acute kidney injury). Results showed that all-cause mortality was higher in the digoxin user group than in the non-user group, after adjusting for covariates (adjusted hazard ratio, aHR 1.63; 95% CI 1.23-2.17). The risk for acute coronary syndrome (sub-distribution hazard ratio, sHR 1.18; 95% CI 0.75-1.86), ischemic stroke (sHR 1.42; 95% CI 0.85-2.37), and rapid eGFR decline (sHR 1.00 95% CI 0.78-1.27) was not significantly different between two groups. In conclusion, our study demonstrated that digoxin use was associated with increased mortality, but not cardiovascular events or renal function decline in advanced CKD patients. This finding warns the safety of prescribing digoxin in this population. Future prospective studies are needed to overcome the limitations of cohort study design.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acute Kidney Injury* / chemically induced
  • Acute Kidney Injury* / mortality
  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Cardiovascular Diseases* / chemically induced
  • Cardiovascular Diseases* / mortality
  • Digoxin* / administration & dosage
  • Digoxin* / adverse effects
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Renal Insufficiency, Chronic* / drug therapy
  • Renal Insufficiency, Chronic* / mortality
  • Taiwan / epidemiology

Substances

  • Digoxin

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the Kaohsiung Municipal CiJin Hospital under Grant Kmch-108-001 to LJY, and partially supported by grants from the Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital (KMUH104-4M07, KMUH104-4M08, KMUH104-4R10, KMUH105-5R18, KMUH106-6R18, and KMUH107-7R17) and Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C. (MOST104-2511-S-037-004-MY2, MOST106-2511-S-037-002, and MOST107-2511-H-037-006-MY2) to JCT. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or manuscript preparation.