[Terminal kidney failure, uremia care and kidney transplantation]

In the Nordic countries, the annual figures for new patients scheduled for renal replacement therapy (i.e., dialysis or kidney transplantation) are 49 (Denmark), 55 (Finland), 65 (Norway) and 99 (Sweden) per million of the population (pmp). Some 40-50 of those patients are medically eligible for transplantation. If the transplant rate of the individual transplant centre or country is less, the waiting list will increase, as they do at some of the Nordic centres. The annual rate of transplants from living related donors, including spouses, varies from almost zero in Finland to nearly 20 pmp in Norway. The average age of recipients has increased with the increasing age of patients accepted for dialysis. Of the Nordic countries, Norway has the highest acceptance rate of patients above the age of 70, whereas dialysis is the preferred treatment for most of the elderly patients in the other Nordic countries. During the period 1989-93, death with a functioning kidney accounted for nearly half the graft losses in the Norwegian transplant population, and graft rejection for 37 percent. Cardiovascular disease was a predominant cause of death.