Background: Chronic kidney disease is the non-communicable disease with the highest growth in morbidity and mortality. Renal transplantation (RT) is the first option of renal replacement in end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) and dialysis is an alternative. However, there is no objective quantification of the impact of both options on a patient's overall survival. The purpose of our study is to assess the potential years of life lost by patients on renal replacement therapy.
Methods: Retrospective study cohort conducted from 2008 to 2018 based on autonomic data registry.
Results: 11,551 patients included who received renal replacement therapy (RRT) in a range of age from 15 to 94 years. The mean age at the time of onset was 62.7 years, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) (62.4; 63.0). The mortality rate of RRT patients was 42.2%, 95% CI (41.5; 43.3) and the mean age at death was 72.7 years, 95% CI (72.4; 73.1). The number of patients with ESKD treated with RT was 3776, 32.7% of the total, 95% CI (31.8; 33.5). The total amount of years of potential life lost (YPLL) in the entire cohort was 77,831.3 years, 48,010.1 years in men, and 29,821.2 years in women. The mean number of YPLL per patient with RRT was 6.74 years in both sexes, 6.95 years in women, and 6.61 years in men. The mean number of potential years of life lost in dialysis patients was 9.0 years in both sexes, 8.8 years in men, and 9.2 years in women, while among kidney transplant recipients this figure decreased to 2.2 years in both men and women.
Conclusions: End-stage chronic kidney disease in renal replacement therapy by dialysis causes an average of 9.0 years of life potentially lost for each patient on dialysis treatment, while having received a kidney transplant reduces this figure by 75.6%.
Keywords: end-stage kidney disease; kidney transplantation; premature mortality; renal replacement therapy.