Long‐term survival in home‐hemodialysis

Helena Rydell, Lena Krützen, Ole Simonsen, Naomi Clyne, Mårten Segelmark

Survival for patients on dialysis is poor. Earlier reports have indicated that home-hemodialysis is associated with improved survival but most of the studies are old and report only short-time survival. The characteristics of patient populations are often incompletely described. In this study, we report long-term survival for patients starting home-hemodialysis as first treatment and estimate the impact on survival of age, comorbidity, decade of start of home-hemodialysis, sex, primary renal disease and subsequent renal transplantation. One hundred twenty-eight patients starting home-hemodialysis as first renal replacement therapy 1971-1998 in Lund were included. Data were collected from patient files, the Swedish Renal Registry and Swedish census. Survival analysis was made as intention-to-treat analysis (including survival after transplantation) and on-dialysis-treatment analysis with patients censored at the day of transplantation. Ten-, twenty- and thirty-year survival were 68%, 36% and 18%. Survival was significantly affected by comorbidity, age and what decade the patients started home-hemodialysis. For patients younger than 60 years and with no comorbidities, the corresponding figures were 75%, 47% and 23% and a subsequent renal transplantation did not significantly influence survival. Long-term survival for patients starting home-hemodialysis is good, and improves decade by decade. Survival is significantly affected by patient age and comorbidity, but the contribution of subsequent renal transplantation was not significant for younger patients without comorbidities.