According to a new study conducted by Manfred Hecking with Friedrich Port and colleagues from Arbor Research Collaborative for Health in Ann Arbor, Michigan, fewer women than men are treated for dialysis for end-stage kidney disease.
The study was a comprehensive sex-specific analysis of differences in treatment and has been published in PLOS Medicine. The findings from this study suggest that further research should be conducted to find out the underlying reasons for the sex-specific treatment differences in end-stage renal disease.
During the study, the authors conducted an analysis of sex-specific differences among individuals with end-stage kidney disease. The primary objectives of the study were to identify treatment inequalities and ways in which sex-specific care could be improved. The Dialysis Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study (DOPPS), a prospective cohort study investigating the characteristics, treatment and outcomes of patients undergoing haemodialysis in dialysis facilities in 19 countries, was used for the purpose of this research.
The researchers studied 206,374 patients from 12 countries. They also gathered data from the Human Mortality Database of the World Health Organization, and compared it with the data collected by the DOPPS. The analysis showed that women's survival after haemodialysis was virtually equal to men's survival. However, the findings showed that women were not receiving haemodialysis treatment as early as men, leading to higher mortality among women before treatment.
According to the findings of this study, 59 percent of men were on haemodialysis compared to 41 percent of women, despite the fact that chronic kidney diseases are more common in women. The findings also indicate that men were more frequent recipients of a kidney transplant to women.
Overall the study shows that men have an advantage over women as far as treatment for end-stage renal disease is concerned. The survival advantage that women have over men in the general population is decreased. The authors believe that more studies need to be conducted to determine the reasons for this difference. "The finding that fewer women than men were being treated with dialysis for end-stage renal disease merits detailed further study, as the large discrepancies in sex-specific haemodialysis prevalence by country and age group are likely explained by factors beyond biology."
Source: Science Daily
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
