Abstract
A total of 188 long-term hemodialysis patients surviving more than 10 years were clinically analyzed in Kyoto Prefecture, and their quality of life and general aspects of their complications were investigated. The rate of patients surviving more than 10 years compard with all hemodialysis patients in Kyoto Prefecture was 13.1%, slightly higher than the average in Japan (10.6%), because chronic hemodialysis was applied here earlier than in other areas.
The average age of subjects was 48 years, and 60.6% were male and 39.4%, female. The primary reasons for these patients to be on dialysis were as follows: chronic glomerulonephritis (71.8%), nephrosis (5.3%), chronic pyelonephritis (2.1%) and tuberculosis (2.1%). They included 183 outpatients and 5 hospital patients. Main complaints were joint pain (23.4%), dyskinesia (7.4%), paralysis (5.3%) and lumbago (4.3%) probably due to renal osteodystrophy and dialysis associated amyloidosis.
Physical and laboratory findings of these patients were as follows: mean TP 6.6g/dl, mean Ht 26.7%, mean BUN 80mg/dl and mean Cr 12.7mg/dl. Almost all patients hope to have the stress of dialysis treatment reduced however, they seem to be reasonably satisfied with their treatment from the fact that only 10.1% of them hope to have renal transplantation. There was difference in the evaluation of quality of life between patients (20.2%) and doctors (5.9%). The present analysis suggests that it is important to pay careful attention to renal osteodystrophy and dialysis associated amyloidosis.
