Concepedia

Abstract

<h3>Background</h3> After cardiovascular disease, infection is the second leading reason for admission to hospital among patients receiving long-term dialysis. We examined whether duration of dialysis treatment influences the rate of infection-related admission to hospital. <h3>Methods</h3> Using provincial administrative databases for Quebec, we built a retrospective cohort of all adults receiving long-term dialysis (hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis) between 2001 and 2007. We evaluated rates of infection-related admission to hospital according to length of time on dialysis. <h3>Results</h3> A cohort of 9822&nbsp;patients (mean age 66.3 [standard deviation&nbsp;±&nbsp;14.7] yr; 39.7%&nbsp;female) were followed for a median of 2.1 (range 1.0–3.9) years. Between 2001 and 2007, infection-related hospital admissions remained stable (from 0.20 to 0.19 per person-year; <i>p</i>&nbsp;=&nbsp;0.7). All-cause hospital admission rates decreased by 22.9% (from 1.53 to 1.18 per person-year; <i>p</i>&nbsp;&lt;&nbsp;0.001), and cardiovascular-related admission rates decreased by 46.7% (from 0.45 to 0.24 per person-year; <i>p</i>&nbsp;&lt;&nbsp;0.001). The rate of infection-related admission remained stable with increasing time on dialysis (<i>p</i>&nbsp;=&nbsp;0.1); however, both all-cause and cardiovascular-related admission rates decreased with length of time on dialysis (<i>p</i>&nbsp;&lt; 0.001). Standardization of hospital admission rates by age, sex or length of time on dialysis did not change trends. <h3>Interpretation</h3> We found a stable rate of infection-related hospital admission between 2001 and 2007 among patients on long-term dialysis, independent of age, sex and length of time on dialysis. A decrease in all-cause and cardiovascular-related admission rates during the same period meant that the proportion of admissions related to infection increased. Because admissions to hospital are potentially preventable, understanding the epidemiology of infection-related admissions may inform future studies on prevention of this serious outcome.