The association between malignancy and end-stage renal disease in Taiwan

Patients with end-stage renal disease are suggestive to have a higher risk for the development of some kinds of cancer. The aim of this study is to evaluate the possible association between malignancy and end-stage renal disease in Taiwan.

We used the data of the National Health Insurance system of Taiwan to assess this issue. The end-stage renal disease cohort contained 21 817 patients, and each patient was randomly frequency-matched with two people from the general population without end-stage renal disease based on their age and sex. The Cox proportional hazard regression analysis was conducted to estimate the effects of end-stage renal disease on the cancer risk.

In patients with end-stage renal disease, the risk of developing overall cancer was significantly higher than the normal healthy subjects (adjusted hazard ratio = 1.64, 95% confidence interval = 1.54-1.74). This was also true when we analyzed males and females separately. For individual cancer, the risks for developing urinary tract cancers, liver cancer and breast cancer among patients with end-stage renal disease were significantly higher. On the contrary, lung, prostate and esophageal cancer risks were significantly lower when compared with the normal healthy subjects.

Our study found Taiwanese patients with end-stage renal disease to have a higher risk to develop urinary tract, liver and breast cancer. We unexpectedly discovered these patients to have a lower risk to get lung, prostate and esophageal cancer.