This study investigated the clinical outcomes and mortality risks in elderly peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients with diabetes mellitus (DM). A total of 210 incident PD patients aged 70 years or older (mean age 80.7 ± 5.0 years; 60.5% men) who initiated treatment between 2009 and 2020 were analyzed, including 81 (38.6%) with DM. Compared with non-diabetic patients, those with DM were younger (79.6 ± 4.7 vs. 81.4 ± 5.0 years, p = 0.011), and had higher fasting glucose (6.18 4.53-9.30 vs. 4.88 4.40-5.63 mmol/L, p p p = 0.479), peritonitis-free survival (p = 0.953), or technique survival (p = 0.763) between the two groups in this cohort. In both Cox and Fine-Gray models, female sex (HR 1.505, 95% CI 1.033-2.193; p = 0.033) was an independent risk factor for all-cause mortality, whereas higher serum albumin (per 1 g/L increase: HR 0.938, 95% CI 0.906-0.971; p p = 0.004) were independent protective factors. DM did not significantly predict mortality (HR 1.260, 95% CI 0.830-1.913; p = 0.279). These findings suggest that DM is not associated with worse clinical outcomes in elderly PD patients and may not represent a barrier to PD initiation.
Xu et al. (Wed,) studied this question.