The purpose of this study is to determine whether L5, one of the Low Density Lipoproteins, is an effective predicting factor for cardiovascular disease in chronic renal and hemodialytic patients.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the most important cause of death of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and hemodialysis (HD) patients. Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) is an essential indicator of CVD.The higher the plasma LDL level, the higher the risk of CVD. LDL is a heterogenous substance composed of different mass and size. Oxidized LDL (oxLDL) is the oxidation product of LDL and is the most important component of LDL associated with CVD. The oxLDL is mostly trapped within tissue and not easily to be detected from blood. L5 iw a kind of electronegative LDL and is associated with CVD in smokers and diabetic patients, even if these patients have normal plasma LDL. Uremia patients have lipid profile different from that of general people,while HD Patients have lower LDL and CKD patients have LDL higher than that of general population. Thus LDL plasma level cannot fully explain the high risk of CVD in CKD and HD patients. As patients with normal LDL but high L5 are prone to have CVD, we suspect there might be association of L5 with CVD in both CKD and HD patients.

Inclusion Criteria:

• clinical diagnosis of CKD
• clinical diagnosis of HD

Exclusion Criteria:

• N/A

Residents in Taiwan, mostly in Taichung area