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Patients with chronic kidney disease who receive dialysis are particularly at risk for cardiovascular (CV) mortality. To examine whether dialysis also elevates risk for noncardiovascular mortality, researchers studied a cohort of 120,000 new dialysis patients (mean age, 63; 61% men) in nine European countries. During as long as 3 years of follow-up (mean, 1.8 years), 35% died. Mortality data for the cohort were compared with general-population data from the same countries.
Age-adjusted mortality rates in the cohort for CV and non-CV causes were roughly equal (38 and 50 deaths per 1000 person-years, respectively) and both were 8 to 9 times higher than the corresponding rates in the general population. Most non-CV deaths were caused by infecti…