Outcome and Complications of Regular Hemodialysis

Regular dialysis treatment has been available at a national level in Egypt for more than three decades. Hemodialysis is a vital and lifesaving procedure so that many organizations, including governmental and non-governmental bodies, adopt it. Hemodialysis service is usually provided by either non-profit- or profit-based bodies.

Dialysis therapy ameliorates many of the clinical manifestations of renal failure and postpones otherwise imminent death . Despite this undeniable success, hemodialysis patients have higher mortality and hospitalization rates and lower quality of life than the general population. Also, patients must contend with unique treatment complications, such as vascular access failure, at considerable expense and morbidity .

Effective hemodialysis requires repeated and reliable access to the bloodstream through a central venous catheter or a surgically created arteriovenous communication (an autologous fistula or a synthetic graft). However, vascular access thrombosis and infection occur frequently and are the leading cause of dialysis-related morbidity.

Mortality in hemodialysis patients: The greatest number of deaths were due to infections, followed by withdrawal from dialysis, cardiac, sudden death, vascular, and other.

Quality of life in hemodialysis patients is reduced in all the health domains of Hemodialysis patients. Older age, male gender, unemployment, and duration of dialysis adversely affected the QOL scores.

Hospitalization in hemodialysis: Patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) have a greater risk of comorbidities, including diabetes and anemia, and have higher hospital admission rates than patients with other diseases. The cause of hospital admissions is associated with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) prognosis.