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BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Prognostic information is rarely conveyed by nephrologists because of clinical uncertainty about accuracy. The objective of this study was to develop an integrated prognostic model of 6-mo survival for patients who receive hemodialysis (HD). DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, 95% confidence interval CI 1.17 to 1.57), dementia (HR 2.24; 95% CI 1.11 to 4.48), peripheral vascular disease (HR 1.88; 95% CI 1.24 to 2.84), decreased albumin (HR for a 1-U increase 0.27; 95% CI 0.15 to 0.50), and SQ (HR 2.71; 95% CI 1.76 to 4.17). Area under the curve for the resulting prognostic model predictions of 6-mo mortality were 0.87 (95% CI 0.82 to 0.92) in the derivation cohort and 0.80 (95% CI 0.73 to 0.88) in the validation cohort. CONCLUSIONS: An integrated 6-mo prognostic tool was developed and validated for the HD population. The instrument may be of value for researchers and clinicians to improve end-of-life care by providing more accurate prognostic information.
Cohen et al. (Fri,) studied this question.