Trends over time in primary disease among incident dialysis patients in Japan: focusing on elderly patients aged≥80 years

Abstract

The annual survey of the Japanese Society for Dialysis Therapy Renal Data Registry (JRDR) conducted in December 2018 reported that since 2015 the number of incident dialysis patients has tended to increase. Population aging has significantly affected the number of incident dialysis patients. Therefore, to clarify the trends over time in primary disease among incident dialysis patients and the characteristics of incident dialysis patients aged≥80 years, we examined the number of incident dialysis patients and the frequency of each primary disease in 3 age groups using data obtained from the annual survey of the JRDR over the past 7 years (CD-ROM version). As a result, we found that among patients aged≥20 years to<80 years, the primary disease rate and associated incident dialysis rate of diabetic nephropathy and chronic glomerulonephritis decreased, whereas those of nephrosclerosis and unknown primary diseases increased. The rates of all other primary diseases remained the same. It was considered that the increase in the number of incident dialysis patients was mainly because of an increase in the elderly (aged≥80 years) population, and that certain primary diseases were associated with the increase in the incident dialysis rate among patients aged≥80 years. In future, measures aimed at elderly patients will become much more important for reducing the incident dialysis rate.