Aging problem of the patient population on maintenance hemodialysis

---

Fumihiko Hinoshita

National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Japan

: J Nephrol Ren Dis

Abstract

---

The number of maintenance hemodialysis (HD) patients has been steadily increasing and now it exceeds 2.2 million throughout the world. As a result of this marked increase in the number of HD patients, there are many HDassociated problems worldwide to be resolved in the near future. One of these is “the aging problem of the patient population on maintenance HD”. According to 2016 USRDS Annual Data Report, the treated end stage renal disease (ESRD) incidence was highest among patients aged 75 years or older in a majority of the countries. The highest rates in this age group were reported for Taiwan, with 2,784 PMP/year, followed by U.S., Israel and Singapore. In Japan, in 10 years the prevalence rate of patients aged 75 years and older on maintenance HD increased from 21.5% in 2005 to 32.0% in 2015. We expect that aging of the HD patient population will certainly progress not only in these countries with higher overall life expectancy, but also in China and in other emerging and developing countries in the near future. Therefore, we believe it is an urgent necessity to take measures in advance regarding the continuous increase in the aged patient population on HD. This important and serious theme will be discussed based on a survey on the current situation of HD and peritoneal dialysis (PD) facilities in Japan conducted by us; the topics included are transportation of the patients to HD facilities, long-term hospitalization of the patients on HD and so on.

Biography

---

Fumihiko Hinoshita graduated from Tokyo Medical and Dental University in 1981 (M.D.) and has completed his PhD at the age of 31 years from the same university, and postdoctoral study from Harvard Medical School. He is the head of Department of Nephrology, National Center for Global Health and Medicine, a prestigious national medical center of Japan. He has published nearly 40 papers in reputed journals and served as the Lead Guest Editor for the special issue on “Hemodialysis-Associated Problems to solve: Current and Future” of the Scientific World Journal in 2013.

E-mail: fhinoshi@hosp.ncgm.go.jp