Life Expectancy Trend of ESRD Patients Treated with Dialysis (1995-2013)
Introduction
Over the past two decades there has been little to no improvement in treatment for people who have end stage renal disease (ESRD). The two main methods of treatment for ESRD are kidney transplant or dialysis. However, due to the limitations involved with transplantation, the majority of patients receive dialysis. It has been speculated whether or not small advancements in dialysis technology have increased ESRD patient lifetimes. Figure 1 plots the expected remaining lifetime of individuals with ESRD who have been treated with dialysis based on the number of years they have remaining.
Figure 1 shows that the lifetime expectancy of individuals with ESRD depends on age. What was also seen from the data, but not depicted here, was the influence of gender and race. Asian Americans generally had a better prognosis than African Americans and white individuals and males had a better prognosis than females. Generally people with ESRD and dialysis treatment had between one third and one half of the normal remaining expected lifetime in years of a healthy person with the same age, gender, and race. Patient lifetime obviously has not improved enough over the past two decades and shows the importance of new technologies to the field of dialysis.
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