Age-related and prognostic risk factors in dialysis patients

Abstract

The replacement of renal function by dialysis is one of the major achievements of modern medicine. However, given the fact that renal failure shares common causes with cardiovascular diseases, dialysis patients are a population with a risk profile of almost unique severity. In fact, it was remarked that the risk of cardiovascular death of a young man (<30 years) on dialysis equals that of a healthy man over 85 years in the general population, suggesting that the pathogenetic processes linked to aging may be accelerated in dialysis patients