University College London

ILD150

It has been reported for some time that heart disease is the main cause of death for people with kidney disease. The UK Renal Registry (UKRR) annual reports show that the percentage of kidney patients dying of heart disease has been getting lower over the past ten years. We believe this is due to changes in the way that heart disease and stroke are being managed and treated. However, the percentage of kidney patients dying of infections has stayed the same (excluding COVID years). If infections are now the main cause of death for people with kidney disease, we need to look at how healthcare for infections can be improved to help people with kidney disease live longer. In this study, we will look at the UKRR’s data on deaths of patients with kidney disease. We will look at adults in England who started dialysis from 2004. The amount of information on children is too small to show trends in different causes of death. This will provide up-to-date information on the causes of death for adult kidney dialysis patients in England. It will show which causes of death are the most common for adults on dialysis. If it shows that infection is becoming a major cause of death then this can be used to encourage research on the causes of infection and the ways in which treatment can be improved. We will account for patient characteristics including age, sex, ethnicity and some pre-existing health conditions in our analyses. We will look at men and women separately by ethnicity. We will also look at sub-groups of patients with diabetes, pre-existing cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and known cancer at the time of dialysis.