Survival of patients who opt for dialysis versus conservative care: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Non-dialytic conservative care (CC) has been proposed as a treatment option for patients with kidney failure. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims at comparing survival outcomes between dialysis and CC in studies where patients made an explicit treatment choice.

Five databases were systematically searched from origin through 25 February 2021 for studies comparing survival outcomes among patients choosing dialysis versus CC. Adjusted and unadjusted survival rates were extracted and meta-analysis performed where applicable. Risk of bias analysis was performed according to the Cochrane Risk Of Bias In Non-randomized Studies of Interventions.

A total of 22 cohort studies were included covering 21 344 patients. Most studies were prone to selection bias and confounding. Patients opting for dialysis were generally younger and had fewer comorbid conditions, fewer functional impairments and less frailty than patients who chose CC. The unadjusted median survival from treatment decision or an estimated glomerular filtration rate <15 mL/min/1.73 m2 ranged from 20 and 67 months for dialysis and 6 and 31 months for CC. Meta-analysis of 12 studies that provided adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for mortality showed a pooled adjusted HR of 0.47 (95% confidence interval 0.39-0.57) for patients choosing dialysis compared with CC. In subgroups of patients with older age or severe comorbidities, the reduction of mortality risk remained statistically significant, although analyses were unadjusted.

Patients opting for dialysis have an overall lower mortality risk compared with patients opting for CC. However, a high risk of bias and heterogeneous reporting preclude definitive conclusions and results cannot be translated to an individual level.