Introduction: Diabetic patients normally have enlarged or normal-sized kidneys throughout their lifetime, but some diabetic uremic patients have small kidneys. It is uncertain if kidney size could have any negative impact on outcome in hemodialysis patients.
Methods: This longitudinal, observational cohort study recruited 301 diabetic hemodialysis patients in 2015, and followed until 2019. Patients were stratified into two subgroups according to their kidney sizes before dialysis, as small (n = 32) or enlarged or normal (n = 269). Baseline demographic, hematological, biochemical, nutritional, inflammatory and dialysis related data were collected for analysis.
Results: Patients with small kidney size were not only older (P<0.001) and had lower body mass index (P = 0.016), but had also higher blood uric acid concentration (P<0.001) compared with patients with enlarged or normal kidney size. All patients received adequate doses of hemodialysis since the Kt/V and urea reduction ratio was 1.7±0.3 and 0.7±0.1, respectively. Patients with small size kidneys received higher erythropoietin dose than patients with enlarged or normal kidney size (P = 0.031). At the end of analysis, 92 (30.6%) patients expired. Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed no survival difference between both groups (P = 0.753). In a multivariate logistic regression model, it was demonstrated that age (P<0.001), dialysis duration (P<0.001), as well as blood albumin (P = 0.012) and low-density lipoprotein (P = 0.009) concentrations were significantly correlated with mortality.
Conclusions: Small kidney size on starting hemodialysis was not related with an augmented risk for death in diabetic patients receiving hemodialysis. Further studies are necessary.