Current evidence shows that survival outcomes are equivalent for dialysis techniques

Abstract

Studies that have analyzed survival between hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis have showed heterogeneous outcomes for both techniques, and often confusing, also dependent on many factors. For this reason, it is necessary to know if there are real differences between the two treatments, to put the scientific evidence as a fundamental pillar in the choice of treatment, along with the clinical circumstances of individual patients, preferences and lifestyle of these. A comparative review of survival among dialysis techniques cannot avoid a basic methodological characteristics or attributes, such as appropriate designs such as observational studies with large cohorts, with incidents and no prevalent populations, with "intent to treat analysis "survival analysis and multivariate analysis with adjustments to the main comorbidity. We studied the nine classical main studies (incidents before 2002), presenting similar conclusions: there are no major differences between the techniques outcomes. When performing a stratification and adjustment for comorbidities, peritoneal dialysis has a equivalent or better prognosis in the nondiabetic group, less comorbidity and younger, almost all the publications, and hemodialysis in diabetics, older and more comorbid groups. The recent studies (including incidents after 2002), concluding a similar behavior for the survival HD: DP. Similarly, age and comorbidity influence the patient's outcomes almost identical to previous studies. In the last decade has seen an improvement in the prognosis of patients on dialysis, more pronounced in PD patients, both in the U.S., and Europe, Australia and in Spain (Andalusia analysis also). Finally, by multivariate analysis, we can show that patient survival on dialysis is much more influenced by conditions at the beginning of the treatment, as age, presence of diabetes or cardiovascular disease, rather than the type of technique of dialysis.