Bone in CKD: why the ERA EDTA CKD-MBD working group organized a dedicated meeting?

In recent years, we have witnessed an impressive increment of our knowledge of bone. Osteocytes, formerly regarded as inactive cells evolved from osteoblasts, victim of their own mineralizing activity, are now considered to be the master orchestrators of osteoblasts and osteoclasts and as such the core of bone turnover. In fact, osteocytes are not inactive or dead, rather they actively live although buried into the lacuno-canalicular system they created themselves. Fluid movements and forces in the lacunae allow bone to sense mechanical load and to react by producing local chemical signals that elicit, for example, the processes of microcracks repair. Eventually, osteocytes also produce (or modulates the production by osteoblasts and osteoclasts) a number of noncollagenous bone proteins that reach blood flow and activate specific receptors in distant organs, thus transforming bone into a systemic endocrine gland with potential distant effects