The impact of peritoneal dialysis-related peritonitis on mortality in peritoneal dialysis patients

摘要

Background Results concerning the association between peritoneal dialysis-related peritonitis and mortality in peritoneal dialysis patients are inconclusive, with one potential reason being that the time-dependent effect of peritonitis has rarely been considered in previous studies. This study aimed to evaluate whether peritonitis has a negative impact on mortality in a large cohort of peritoneal dialysis patients. We also assessed the changing impact of peritonitis on patient mortality with respect to duration of follow-up. Methods This retrospective cohort study included incident patients who started peritoneal dialysis from 1 January 2006 to 31 December 2011. Episodes of peritonitis were recorded at the time of onset, and peritonitis was parameterized as a time-dependent variable for analysis. We used the Cox regression model to assess whether peritonitis has a negative impact on mortality. Results A total of 1321 patients were included. The mean age was 48.1?±?15.3?years, 41.3% were female, and 23.5% with diabetes mellitus. The median (interquartile) follow-up time was 34 (21–48) months. After adjusting for confounders, peritonitis was independently associated with 95% increased risk of all-cause mortality (hazard ratio, 1.95; 95% confidence interval: 1.46–2.60), 90% increased risk of cardiovascular mortality (hazard ratio, 1.90; 95% confidence interval: 1.28–2.81) and near 4-fold increased risk of infection-related mortality (hazard ratio, 4.94; 95% confidence interval: 2.47–9.86). Further analyses showed that peritonitis was not significantly associated with mortality within 2?years of peritoneal dialysis initiation, but strongly influenced mortality in patients dialysed longer than 2?years. Conclusions Peritonitis was independently associated with higher risk of all-cause, cardiovascular and infection-related mortality in peritoneal dialysis patients, and its impact on mortality was more significant in patients with longer peritoneal dialysis duration.