ABSTRACT
Because of the significant costs related to the treatment of end-stage kidney disease by dialysis, Belgian Health Care Authorities proposed in June 2009 an early multidisciplinary care of the chronic kidney disease (CKD) in a so-called clinical pathway (CP). Working on the hypothesis that inclusion into a CP could result in reduced morbidity and mortality and delayed admission on dialysis, we initiated a retrospective cohort study on dialyzed patients for whom a prior CKD diagnosis was made between June 1, 2009 and August 31, 2013 in the Nephrology Dept of Erasme Hospital. The exposed patient group was defined as enrolled patients into a CP (n = 25), the control patients were free of any CP (n = 25). Survival analyses were performed to search for an association between the inclusion into a CP and the time period needed to reach dialysis, but also to find a possible impact of CP on mortality and risk of hospitalization. The present study showed that CKD-CP significantly delayed the time of dialysis initiation (HR = 0.48 [0.27-0.87]; p = 0.015) but also reduced mortality (HR = 0.10 [0.02-0.53]; p = 0.007) and hospitalization risk (HR = 0.30 [0.11-0.83]; p = 0.020) after starting dialysis. These data suggest the benefit of a multidisciplinary care of CKD patients. However, a larger scale study is necessary to confirm these results.
