Hypertension The most common cardiovascular complication associated with dialysis

(HealthDay News) — Hypertension is the most common cause of death among dialysis patients worldwide, according to a study presented at Kidney Week, the American Society of Nephrology's annual meeting, held Oct. 23-27 at Sun. It is said to be a common comorbidity of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Diego.

Belen Alejos, Ph.D., of Fresenius Medical Care in Bad Homburg, Germany, and colleagues analyzed the prevalence of CVD in 543,169 dialysis patients treated in 40 countries on six continents. The analysis included data from the first version of the global dialysis database (Apollo Dial DB, January 2018 to March 2021).

The researchers found that 79% of included patients reported at least one CVD condition, including hypertension (73.6%), the most common. Some differences in the prevalence of CVD conditions were observed by age and gender. For example, atherosclerotic heart disease affected 19.0%, and prevalence increased with age (9.9% for those aged 18–44 years and 24.1% for those aged 75 years and older). Atherosclerotic heart disease was also more common in men (20.3%) than women (17.2%). A similar trend was seen for congestive heart failure, which affected 17.5% of the population but increased with age. Other diseases with lower prevalence, such as peripheral vascular disease (11.5%), cardiomyopathy (7.3%), and arrhythmia (7.1%), were all more prevalent in older age groups and in men.

“The most common CVD comorbidity among dialysis patients worldwide is hypertension, followed by atherosclerotic heart disease and congestive heart failure,” the authors write. “Future analyzes are needed to explore differences across regions of the world, which could inform region-specific management strategies.”