The Effect of Anemia and Hypoalbuminemia on Six-Months Hospitalization Risk in End Stage Chronic Kidney Disease Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients, particularly those who require renal replacement therapy, have a higher risk of hospitalization and mortality compared than the general population. The patients can suffer hypoalbuminemia and anemia due to chronic inflammations, that might affect the risk of hospitalization risk. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of albumin dan hemoglobin levels on the hospitalization incidence of patients with stage 5 chronic kidney disease who undergo chronic hemodialysis.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study enrolled patients aged 18 years and older with end stage kidney disease who underwent regular hemodialysis at the Prof. dr. R. D Kandou Hospital, Manado, Indonesia. Patients with malignancy were excluded. We measured the hemoglobin and albumin baseline level and observed the hospitalization incidence over the next 6 months. We used the Chi Square test with significance level of p-value 0.05, to analyze the association between both anemia and hypoalbuminemia with risk of hospitalization over 6 months of follow up period.

Results: We enrolled 202 patients as our participants, most of whom were men (61.8%), with a mean age of 60.21±9.32 years. There were 120 participants (59.4%) being hospitalized during 6-months-follow-up period. The mean level of albumin was 3.29±0.63 g/dl, while the mean hemoglobin level was 9.43±1.75 g/dl. This study found that most of the participants had hypoalbuminemia (62.9%) while 45% had anemia. We found significant associations between hypoalbuminemia and anemia with the risk of hospitalization within 6 months, with p values 0.001 and 0.007, respectively. The relative risk for being hospitalized over 6 months follow up period in patients having anemia was 2.32 (95% CI 1.29-4.17), and for hypoalbuminemia was 2.77 (95% CI 1.54-4.99).

Conclusion: Hypoalbuminemia and anemia are associated with increased risk of all causes hospitalization within 6 months in stage 5 chronic kidney disease patients undergoing hemodialysis.