LETTER
Hispanics with End-Stage Renal Disease
Stephen E. Radecki, PhD, and
Allen R. Nissenson, MD
1 November 1994 | Volume 121 Issue 9 | Pages 723-724
TO THE EDITOR:
The recent National Institutes of Health consensus conference statement on the morbidity and mortality of renal dialysis noted that whereas the incidence of treated end-stage renal disease is dramatically higher for African-Americans and Native Americans than for other racial groups [1], a clinical impression of greater treated incidence in Hispanics could not be confirmed because of the unavailability of data on ethnicity in the United States Renal Data System [2]. National data from our 1980s dialysis practice study show that Hispanics accounted for 7.6% of the population of treated patients with end-stage renal disease at that time [3] compared with 6.4% of the resident population (1980 U.S. Census) [4]. Among end-stage renal disease subgroups, Hispanics have a 10.0% rate for diabetic nephropathy and a 4.1% rate for hypertensive nephropathy [3], rates consistent with overall ethnic patterns in mortality associated with these underlying diseases [5]. Although the subsequent increase in the number of Hispanics in the U.S. resident population [4] will have increased these figures, the findings corroborate the clinical impression cited above [1] by showing a slight over-representation of Hispanics among treated patients with end-stage renal disease.
1. Consensus Development Conference Development Panel. Morbidity and mortality of renal dialysis: an NIH consensus conference statement. Ann Intern Med. 1994; 121:62-70.
2. U.S. Renal Data System, USRDS 1993 Annual Data Report. Bethesda, Maryland: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; 1993.
3. Radecki SE, Nissenson AR. Dialysis for chronic renal failure: comorbidity and treatment differences by disease etiology. Am J Nephrol. 1989; 9:115-23.
4. U.S. Bureau of the Census. Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1992. 112th ed. Washington, D.C.; 1992.
5. Sorlie PD, Backlund E, Johnson NJ, Rogot E. Mortality by Hispanic status in the United States. JAMA. 1993; 270:2464-8.
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