Malnutrition in elderly patients with renal failure: Importance of pre-dialysis period

Background and aimsIn elderly, renal failure is one of the major comorbidities. Malnutrition is another clinical problem in these patients’ follow-up. In this study, we compared nutritional states of elderly patients with different renal functions.MethodsEighty-three predialysis and 121 hemodialysis (HD) patients of 65 years and older and as control group, 46 elderly patients with no renal failure were compared. Blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, thyroid stimulating hormone, vitamin B12 and folic acid levels were measured in every patient. Nutritional status of all patients was evaluated with Mini Nutritional Assessment Short Form (MNA-SF). One-way ANOVA, post-hoc Tukey and Pearson correlation analysis were used for statistics.ResultsThe mean MNA-SF of pre-dialysis patients was 8.67 ± 3.00. In HD patients, it was 11.44 ± 2.43 and in control, it was 11.48 ± 2.27. In HD patients, a weak correlation was detected between higher BUN, creatinine and higher MNA-SF (r = 0.181, P = 0.047), (r  =  0.181, P = 0.046). In HD patients, vitamin B12 levels were higher than pre-dialysis and control group (P < 0.001).ConclusionIn elderly patients with renal failure, malnutrition starts in pre-dialysis period and MNA-SF can be a reliable technic for these patients’ nutritional evaluation.