Japanese society for dialysis therapy renal data registry—a window through which we can view the details of Japanese dialysis population

The Japanese Society for Dialysis Therapy (JSDT) collects the clinical data from all the facilities to create a nation-wide registry system named JSDT Renal Data Registry (JRDR). This survey was begun in 1966 as a form of facility survey. Patient survey started in 1983. More than 95% of facilities respond to the survey on the basis of voluntary work of facility staffs. Therefore, JRDR has the longest history and the most comprehensive coverage. As for the prevalent patients, 304,856 patients are treated by dialysis therapy in Japan as of the year 2011. The demographics of the Japanese dialysis population have been markedly changing in terms of age, primary diagnoses and dialysis vintage. The mean age of prevalent population reaches 66.55 years at the end of 2011. The increase in the numbers of dialysis population is due to the growth of those older than 65 years old. Patients with the vintage longer than 20 years account for 8% of the entire population. Around 38 thousands patients started their dialysis treatments, whereas 31 thousands deceased. The disease burden of cardiovascular diseases as well as infection is substantial due to the demographic changes. Many evidences have been reported from the data obtained from JRDR to date. These findings covers a wide range of dialysis practice and are utilized for the development of JSDT guidelines. Therefore, JRDR has provided indispensable and fundamental data of Japanese dialysis population.