Renal Association Clinical Practice Guideline on prevention of blood borne virus infection in the renal unit

Distribution and association of cancer with mortality in end-stage renal disease patients receiving dialysis

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Cancer in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients is an important comorbidity to be taken into consideration while planning for renal replacement therapy (RRT) options due to its associated increased mortality. This study aims to investigate the natural history and association of cancer with all-cause mortality in an ESRD population receiving dialysis.

METHOD

The study was conducted on 1271 ESRD patients receiving dialysis between January 2012 and December 2017. A comparative analysis was carried out between 119 patients with and 1152 without cancer history at entry into this study (baseline). A 1:2 (119 cancer: 238 no cancer) propensity score matched sample of 357 patients was also used for analysis. Cox-regression analysis was used to study the strength of the association between cancer and all-cause mortality. Kaplan-Meier (KM) analysis was used to demonstrate the difference in cumulative survival between the groups. A competing risk analysis was also carried out to calculate the probability of competing events (death, transplant and incident cancer).

RESULTS

At baseline, 10.1% of the cohort had a history of cancer (current and past) with the annual incident rate being 1.3%. Urological cancers were the leading site of cancer. The median age of our cohort was 63 years with a predominance of males (63%) and Caucasians (79%). The majority (69%) of the cohort were receiving haemodialysis. 47% had a history of diabetes with 88% being hypertensive. During a median follow-up of 28 months, the proportion of deaths observed was similar between the groups in the matched sample (cancer 49.6 versus no-cancer 52.1%, p value 0.77). In a univariable Cox-regression model, there was no significant association between cancer and all-cause mortality (HR 1.28; 95% CI 0.97-1.67; p = 0.07). The KM estimates showed similar observations in the cumulative survival between the groups (matched sample log-rank, p value 0.85). In competing risk analysis, the cumulative probability of death at 5 years was non-significantly higher in the cancer group (cancer group 64% vs no cancer group 51%, p value 0.16).

CONCLUSIONS

In our real-world multi-morbid dialysis cohort of 119 cancer patients, baseline cancer history did not prove to be an independent risk factor for all-cause mortality in the first 5 years of follow-up, suggesting the need for a case-by-case approach in provision of RRT options, including transplantation.

Vaccination practices in dialysis patients: A narrative review

In a period of turmoil concerning vaccination practices, there is a serious conflict between scientifically reasonable, evidence-based guidelines and the far-fetched rumors or misconceptions concerning the vaccination practices in the general population. When a significant portion of the medical and paramedical personnel may be deliberately unvaccinated against common biological agents, achieving effective vaccination rates in the dialysis population may be complicated. Vaccination rates are unacceptably low in dialysis patients and seroconversion rates are even lower; further, serological follow-up is generally poor. The particularly anergic immune system of the advanced chronic kidney disease patients is partly a cause of both high rates of infection and low rates of seroconversions. This narrative review is an effort to summarize current knowledge concerning the vaccination practices in dialysis patients with some specific recommendations based on these facts. Of particular interest is a new vaccine, the Zoster Recombinant, Adjuvanted Vaccine (Shingrix), which we will include in our discussion.

Persistence of hepatitis B surface antigen in blood in a chronic haemodialysis patient following vaccination booster

Patients receiving haemodialysis are at an increased risk of hepatitis B infection; regular screening for incident infection and vaccination of susceptible individuals is recommended. Haemodialysis patients often require repeated high-dose hepatitis B vaccination boosters because of impaired response. Since the hepatitis B surface antigen is used as an immunogenic agent for vaccination and as a marker of hepatitis B infection, it has occasionally been detected in the blood shortly after vaccine administration and can be mistaken for a new infection. These transient results, however, are unlikely to persist for longer than 14 days after vaccination. We report the case of a haemodialysis patient who tested weakly positive for hepatitis B surface antigen 52 days after a vaccine booster. This is the longest vaccine-induced antigenaemia described in the literature and indicates that vaccination can cause weakly positive hepatitis B surface antigen results for longer than previously reported.