This advantage was present in all-cause mortality (ACM) as well as in cardiac mortality (CM). Furthermore, after evaluating more than 5000 dialysis patients who had aortic, mitral, or combined aortic/mitral valve replacements

and comparing survival, Herzog ABC294640 et al. showed that the Kaplan–Meier all-cause survival was not different between the non-tissue and tissue-based valve replacement patients. Cardiac death was also indistinguishable between the two groups, suggesting that the use of bio-prosthetic valves may be indicated to reduce the requirements for anti-coagulation and potentially reduce haemorrhagic complications. The presence of cerebrovascular disease in long-term haemodialysis patients is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. In DOPPS, approximately 18.0% of patients undergoing dialysis in the United States had a history of CVD, defined as stroke, transient ischaemic attack or carotid

endarterectomy.27 Seliger et al.28 analysed the USRDS and National Hospital Discharge Survey data, and determined there was a 4- to 10-fold increased risk of either an ischaemic or haemorrhagic stroke in dialysis patients compared with the general population. The presence of CVD was also found to be an independent predictor of subsequent death in European, Japanese and US dialysis patients27 and in this population, the 2-year mortality rate after a stroke is 64.0%.29 Compared with other forms of CVD, relatively little attention has been given to the overall Oxymatrine prevalence of PVD in patients with ESKD and its effect on long-term prognosis. A large international cohort of patients on haemodialysis was recently evaluated by the DOPPS AZD6244 cost team.30 This prospective, observational study of 29 873 haemodialysis patients involved both DOPPS I and DOPPS II and detailed descriptions of the DOPPS design have previously been published.31 A prevalent cross-section population was initially chosen and with the exception of only 3722 patients that were new to haemodialysis, the remainder of patients were prevalent patients. The total sample was thus a predominantly prevalent population. Associations between baseline clinical variables and PVD were

evaluated by logistic regression analysis and Cox regression models were used to test the association between PVD and risk for ACM, CM and hospitalization. At baseline, PVD was defined as including at least one of the following conditions: (1) prior diagnosis of PVD; (2) intermittent claudication; (3) critical limb ischaemia encompassing rest pain, skin necrosis and gangrene, including recurrent skin infections; (4) surgical revascularization for PVD; (5) amputation for PVD; and (6) aortic aneurysm or surgery for aortic aneurysm. The prevalence of PVD in the total population was 25.3%, but there was significant geographic variation among the 12 DOPPS countries, from 12.0% in Japan to 38.0% in Belgium and 32.7% in Australia and New Zealand.