Epidemiologic profile of patients in dialysis, CTRB and RTS, Medellin branch 2000-2004

Abstract

The Chronic Renal Disease (CRD) represents a clinical condition in which there is irreversible lost of the renal function, leading the patient to depend permanently on renal replacement therapy, called dialysis or transplantation, to a high cost and with severe impact in morbidity and mortality.

We made a retrospective, descriptive study in order to determine the clinical and paraclinical features from the patients at the moment of entrance to dialytic therapy at the renal units CTRB or RTS Medellín branch in the period from october, 2000 to april, 2004, through clinical histories reviews. 656 histories were analyzed, from which 401 fulfilled the inclusion criteria, finding that the main cause of CRD was the Diabetes Mellitus (37.9%), followed by unknown etiology (27.2%). 87.3% of the patients entered to HD and 51.4% did it in an urgent way (from these 89.3% did not have predialysis follow-up); requiring in 73.4% a temporal jugular catheter with complications of 7.3%. It was found that 63.5% had hypoalbuminemia, 90.3% had some grade of anemia and 63.2% had secondary hyperparathyroidism.

The mortality during this period was 22.9%, being the cardiovascular disease the main cause of death (56%). It is concluded that the predialysis handling is the corner stone to impact the morbidity and mortality of the patients who enter to dialytic therapies.