New Anemia Measure Predicts Risk of Death in Dialysis Patients

Newswise — A new indicator of variations in hemoglobin level over time is a strong predictor of the risk of death among patients receiving dialysis for end-stage renal disease (ESRD), reports a study in the December Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

"Hemoglobin variability—a measure of the stability of levels of hemoglobin among chronic hemodialysis patients—provides a novel way of thinking about and understanding the relationship between anemia and outcomes in ESRD," comments Dr. Harold I. Feldman of University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, one of the study authors.

The researchers used data on nearly 35,000 dialysis patients to analyze the effects of hemoglobin variability on the risk of death. They focused on a newly developed metric, termed “Hb-Var,” that measures variability in hemoglobin levels independent of their absolute values and trends over time.

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