Triebswetter S, et al. - Researchers, herein, focused on the long-term mortality predictors among hemodialysis patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). They found that long-term mortality risk was associated with higher age, vascular diseases, hemoglobin A1c, loss of self-dependency, and low energy resources, and did not vary between sexes.

Methods

• Researchers used data from a multicenter, prospective, randomized trial among 1,255 hemodialysis patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and its observational follow-up study.
• Using Cox proportional hazards regression, they assessed the association of 10 baseline candidate variables with mortality.

Results

• Data reported that a total of 103 participants survived the median follow-up of 11.5 years.
• The identified significant predictors of mortality included age (hazard ratio [HR] 1.03, 95% CI 1.02–1.04), cardiovascular (HR 1.42, 95% CI 1.25–1.62) and peripheral vascular disease (HR 1.55, 95% CI 1.36–1.76), higher hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c; HR 1.08, 95% CI 1.03–1.14), and loss of self-dependency (HR 1.20, 95% CI 1.03–1.39).
• Protective associations of higher albumin (HR 0.72, 95% CI 0.59–0.89) and body mass index (BMI; HR 0.98, 95% CI 0.96–0.99) were revealed.
• Researchers observed no significant association with sex, diabetes duration, and cerebrovascular diseases.
• They noted that subgroup analyses by age and diabetes duration demonstrated stronger associations of cardiovascular disease, HbA1c, albumin, BMI, and loss of self-dependency in younger patients and/or shorter diabetes duration.
• In addition, women had more severely increased mortality due to loss of self-dependency and energy resources (albumin, BMI), whilst the impact of cardiovascular and peripheral vascular diseases was more pronounced in men.