Risk for GI Bleed Increased With Hemodialysis Versus Peritoneal Dialysis

THURSDAY, Jan. 19, 2023 (HealthDay News) — The risk for newly diagnosed gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding is increased for patients undergoing hemodialysis (HD) versus peritoneal dialysis (PD), according to a study published online Jan. 2 in Scientific Reports.

Chieh-Hsin Huang, from the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan, and colleagues examined whether HD and PD confer different incidence of GI bleeding in a retrospective cohort study involving all incident dialysis patients older than 18 years of age from the National Health Insurance database in Taiwan from 1998 to 2013. A total of 6,296 matched pairs of HD and PD patients were identified. To minimize selection bias, a propensity score-matching method was used.

The researchers found that in the HD group, the adjusted hazard ratio for GI bleeding was 1.13 times higher than in the PD group; similar results were seen in the unmatched cohort and in a stratified analysis. In a subgroup analysis, the use of anticoagulants was found to induce a much higher incidence of GI bleeding in HD patients than in PD patients.

“Our findings may facilitate better decision-making in terms of selecting a dialysis modality or screening strategies for individuals at risk for GI bleeding, which will in turn further reduce the health care burden in the dialysis population,” the authors write.

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