Dialysis Registry in Utah

Based on the Medicare data, the 5-year survival of dialysis patients is only 39%. This is
lower than that of stage IIIB breast cancer (54% 5-year survival) (1). The annual mortality
of dialysis patients is ~ 23% compared to <0.1% in the U.S. general population (1) . Even
kidney transplant recipients have a substantially higher mortality (~7%) compared to the
general population. Consequently, the life-expectancy of dialysis and transplant populations
is much lower than that of the general population. Cardiovascular events are the leading
cause of death in dialysis patients and malnutrition is also a strong risk factor for death
(2). In the current proposal, we are planning to develop a prospective registry of incident
dialysis patients at the University of Utah dialysis program to examine cardiovascular and
nutritional factors in dialysis patients. This registry will include clinical and
administrative data. In addition, we plan to store blood samples for future analyses.