Nutritional status and mortality of patients in regular dialysis therapy

The relationship between mortality and nutritional status of 48 chronic dialysis patients (32 patients on haemodialysis (HD) and 16 on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD)) was studied over a 24-month period. Patients were scored individually according to relative body weight (RBW), S-transferrin, mid-arm muscle circumference (MAMC) and triceps skinfold thickness (TSF), and were given a total score from 0 (normal nutritional status) to 8 (severe protein-caloric malnutrition) at start of observation. The observation period was characterized by a significantly lower total nutritional score among surviving (n = 39) patients than among patients who died (n = 9) (Mann-Whitney, P less than 0.001). There was no difference in mortality between the two kinds of dialysis therapy (HD,CAPD). In conclusion, chronic dialysis patients with a poor nutritional status have a highly increased mortality. The presumably causal nature of this relationship makes prevention of protein-caloric malnutrition among dialysis patients a high priority task.