[Epidemiology of end stage renal disease in Poland]

Development of end stage renal disease for many years was in Poland "signum maliominis" for patients with this syndrome. Situation dramatically changed as a consequence of dramatic development of renal replacement therapy. This progress was observed not only in basic forms of dialysis therapy (hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis) but also renal transplantation. Increased availability of renal replacement therapy influenced both on the increment total number of treated patients (by 250% during period 1991-2001) and an qualification criteria. These changes caused substantial increase of patients with diabetic and hypertensive nephropathy. Such phenomenon is observed in whole the world and one can conclude that situation in this matter is normalizing in Poland. Similar situation is observed taking into account age of treated patients together with described above changes in primary diseases leading to end stage renal disease will cause more and more significant problem for health care system in Poland and many other countries.