Comparative analysis of patients’ survival on hemodialysis vs. peritoneal dialysis and identification of factors associated with death

INTRODUCTION: There are several studies comparing the outcomes of patients treated with peritoneal dialysis (PD) and hemodialysis (HD), and most are divergent. METHODS: This is a cohort study that followed patients with incident PD and HD in a planned and unplanned way, in a dialysis unit of the HCFMB from 01/2014 to 01/2019, until the outcome. We collected clinical and laboratory data. The PD and HD groups, death and non-death outcomes, were compared using the chi-square test for categorical variables and t-test, or Mann-Whitney test for continuous variables. Kaplan Meier curve and log-rank test were used for survival. Multivariate analysis was performed using the Cox regression. The significant difference was p < 0.05. RESULTS: We had 592 patients, 290 treated by HD and 302 by PD. The mean age was 59.9 ± 16.8, with a predominance of males (56.3%), the main underlying disease was diabetes (45%); 29% of the patients died. There was no difference in the survival of patients treated by HD and PD. The oldest age (1.018 (95% CI 1.000-1.037; p=0.046)) was identified as a risk factor for death, while the highest number of infection-free days (0.999 (95% CI 0.999-1.000; p=0.003 )) as a protective factor. CONCLUSION: The analysis reinforced that the survival of patients on HD and PD was similar. Higher age and shorter infection-free time were associated with death.