Life Expectancy Of Kidney Dialysis

Kidney dialysis is important renal replacement therapy to sustain and prolong life expectancy for end stage kidney disease patients. There are mainly two types of dialysis---hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. However since dialysis can not cure kidney failure, many dialysis patients worry about how long can they survive.

Let’s learn what are the average lifespan for those that are on hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. Also we will talk about vital factors that can affect life expectancy of dialysis patients so as to try to improve their life quality and prolong their life span.

Clinical studies have found that patients that are on hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis have similar life expectancy. If the patients are diabetic renal failure, they will have better survival rate if they receive hemodialysis than peritoneal dialysis.

The mortality rate for dialysis patients is about 22%, so it is considered that living more than 5 years is really hard. But we have to say that life expectancy for each patient is different from others. Some patients can survive less than 5 years while there are also many patients who can survive as long as 25 years while on dialysis. There are also patients who have been living with end stage renal failure and dialysis for more than 30 years or even longer. So we can see that an average dialysis life expectancy might can be given, but the exact number can not be given for each patient.

Life expectancy for dialysis patients vary and it is to a great degree up to the patient’s attitude as well as attitude and caring from their physicians, families and people around them.

There are some vital factors that are very important for affecting the expected life expectancy for dialysis patients.

Cardiovascular complications

Cardiovascular complications such as heart failure is the major life-threatening complications for end stage renal disease patients, weather they are on dialysis or not. Therefore it is very necessary to control high blood pressure and high blood lipid and monitor both kidney functions and heart functions.

Infections

Infections are very common among dialysis patients. You may think it is not very serious, but if not controlled well it can also be life-threatening, therefore early and effective prevention and treatment should be sought.

You need to remember that the life expectancy of dialysis patients can be to a certain degree determined by the patients themselves. Therefore do not be so pessimistic and have a positive attitude.