Aetiology of end-stage renal disease at the National Referral Hospital of Bhutan

Introduction: End stage renal disease (ESRD) is a late stage of chronic kidney disease (CKD) requiring chronic dialysis or renal transplant to survive. End stage renal disease is a growing problem worldwide. In Bhutan too, there are anecdotal evidence showing increasing number of ESRD patients every year, which has become a cause of serious concern for the country. Methods: This retrospective descriptive study was conducted at the National Referral Hospital of Bhutan, from 2019 to 2020 to find out the aetiology of ESRD in the country. The demographic information and aetiology of ESRD were collected from the past record of the patients. A total of 202 eligible ESRD patients were enrolled in this study. Results: The study showed that the mean age of patients was 47.3 ±13.20 years. The majority of the patients 139 (68.8%) were in the age group 24-60 years. Of the total patients, 107 (53.0%) were females. The common aetiologies of ESRD were hypertension (HTN), chronic glomerulonephritis (CGN) and Diabetes Mellitus (DM) constituting 20.8%, 12.9%, and 8.9% of the total patients respectively. In 50.0% of the patients, the aetiology of ESRD were unexplained. Conclusions: The most common aetiologies of ESRD were HTN (20.8%), CGN (12.9%) and DM (8.9%); in 50.0% of the patients, the aetiologies remained unexplained. The majority of ESRD patients (68.8%) in this study were from middle age group, with female predominance (53.0%).