Background: The quality of dialysis care provided by specialists is expected to be superior to that by nonspecialists. However, little is known about the actual effect of specialist care on long-term prognosis in dialysis patients. We sought to determine whether specialist care can actually be associated with better survival rates in a nationwide Japanese dialysis cohort.
Methods: The Japanese Society for Dialysis Therapy (JSDT) has annually reported clinical and demographic variables of dialysis patients for each prefecture in Japan since 1983. We analysed the data for the 47 prefectures from 1983 to 2006 to evaluate the relationship between the proportion of specialists and the cumulative survival rates for 5-year periods.
Results: Trend analyses revealed that a higher quintile of specialists was associated with a better cumulative survival rate at 5-, 10-, 15- and 20-year periods. Univariate analyses for the 47 prefectures showed a higher proportion of specialists to be correlated with a better cumulative survival at 10-, 15- and 20-year periods. Multivariate analyses revealed that the proportion of specialists persisted as an independent contributor for better survival at 10-, 15- and 20-year periods even after adjustment for age, sex, diabetes mellitus and socioeconomical status, while the survival rate at 5 years was at a nonsignificant level.
Conclusions: While our study should be confirmed using data for individuals, this was not possible due to privacy issues. Therefore, based on our current findings, we conclude that for patients on maintenance dialysis, specialist care can be associated with better survival rates, particularly with longer follow-up.