Hemodialysis Patients Profile at Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi. Pakistan

Objectives: To determine the frequency of diseases contributing to End Stage Renal Failure (ESRF) and to determine the frequency of seropositivity for hepatitis B and hepatitis C in our patients.

Methods: This is an observational study of two years duration from January 2012 till December 2013, done at Dow university of Health Sciences. Sample size is 189 by convenient method. Data collection is retrospective. Inclusion criteria includes all patients ever hemodialysed at DIMC with age 14 or above. Exclusion criteria is age below 14. Data maintained and analyzed on SPSS version 16. All categorical data in percentages and numeric data is given in frequencies and mean with Standard deviation.

Result: Total number of patients included in study were 189, Males were 94/189 (49.7%), females were 95/189 (50.3%), Male to female ratio was 0.98: 1.0. Mean age was 51.88+15.2, range was14-86 years. Patients started on Hemodialysis were found to have hypertension in 40.2%, both diabetes and hypertension was present in 42.8%, diabetes alone in 3.1% of patients as likely etiology of renal failure. Seropositivity for HBV was found 4/189(2.1%) and HCV in 31/189(16.4%) at initiation of Hemodialysis.

Conclusion: Hypertension alone is an important disease found in patients with renal failure as likely cause followed by diabetes. Hepatitis C positivity at start of hemodialysis is 16%.