LATIN-AMERICAN REGISTRY OF DIALYSIS AND RENAL-TRANSPLANTATION - 1993 ANNUAL DIALYSIS DATA REPORT

Background. The Latin American Registry of Dialysis and Transplantatio n was created in October 1991 and comprises the National Societies of Nephrology from 21 countries with a total population of 468.56 million inhabitants. Methods. This report includes data from 21 181 patients from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Pu erto Rico, Uruguay, and Venezuela who were receiving chronic dialysis treatment during 1993. Data was collected by individual patient questi onnaires except from Chile and Brazil where the data was obtained from a local centre questionnaire. Results. The prevalence rate averaged 1 31.1 per million population. The mean age of the 8972 incident patient s was 50.5 years, with 58.2% males. The more frequent causes of renal failure were glomerulopathies (22.6%), vascular nephropathy (20.9%) an d diabetes (16.9%). Haemodialysis was the most used treatment (88.3%). Gross mortality was 21.1% and the more frequent causes of death were cardiac complications and infections. The analysis of mortality risk f actors using a logistic regression model showed that diabetics patient s older than 65 years had the highest probability of death (43.0%) and patients with glomerulonephritis, younger than 65 years had the lowes t (8.0%). The adjusted mortality rate was 241 deaths/1000 patient-year s at risk when the USRDS 1987-1989 white mortality rate by age groups and primary diseases was used as standard. Conclusion. In spite of the economic difficulties, very important efforts have been made to treat ESRD patients and gross mortality statistics in some countries are si milar to those reported by other regional registries.