Mortality in hepatitis C-positive patients treated with peritoneal dialysis

The published mortality data for patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and being treated with peritoneal dialysis (PD) are not available. The aim of this study was to determine the mortality of HCV patients undergoing PD.

We retrospectively reviewed 538 PD patients in our hospital from 1996 to 2005. Of these patients, 75 (13.9%) were anti-HCV positive at the beginning of PD. We used Kaplan-Meier analysis to compare mortality between patients with and patients without HCV infection. The association between HCV infection and mortality was analyzed using multivariate Cox regression with adjustment for age, gender, residual renal function, and cardiovascular disease.

A total of 157 patients (39 HCV positive, 118 HCV negative) died during the 10-year follow-up period. The mortality rate (52%, 39/75) of HCV-positive patients was significantly higher than that of HCV-negative patients (25.5%, 118/463; p < 0.001). Cardiovascular mortality was 57.6% (68/118) among HCV-negative patients and 56.4% (22/39) among HCV-positive patients. Kaplan-Meier estimate showed that patients with HCV infection had higher mortality than those without (p < 0.001, log-rank). The result of Cox regression suggested that chronic HCV infection, independent of diabetes, was associated with 10-year mortality. The adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) of HCV infection and diabetes for mortality were 2.195 (95% CI: 1.486 - 3.243, p < 0.001) and 2.242 (95% CI: 1.533 - 3.277, p < 0.001).

Our results show that the HCV-positive PD patients had a higher 10-year mortality rate than the HCV-negative PD patients. The association between HCV infection and mortality was independent of diabetes. Cardiovascular mortality, infection, and arrhythmia were the leading causes of death among the PD patients with HCV infection.