The association between fatal vascular events and risk factors for carotid atherosclerosis in patients on maintenance hemodialysis: Plaque number of dialytic atherosclerosis study

Atherosclerotic vascular diseases are a major cause of morbidity and mortality for end-stage renal disease patients. We followed prospectively 226 hemodialysis patients by carotid ultrasonography to determine if ultrasonographic markers are predictive of the prognosis of these patients. The end-point was death or completion of the five-year follow-up period. Fatal cerebrovascular and cardiovascular events were the most common cause of death. By multivariate analysis, diabetes mellitus (DM) (P = 0.005), plaque number (PN) by ultrasonography (P = 0.023), age (P = 0.001), calcium–phosphate product (P = 0.049), and serum albumin (P = 0.009) were extracted as independent risk factors. The five-year increase of PN was significantly greater for DM patients than for non-DM patients. Moreover, PN was an independent marker of a fatal event, irrespective of DM status. Our results suggest that PN may be a useful predictor of the long-term prognosis of hemodialysis patients.