Improvement of Clinical Outcome by Early Nephrology Referral in Type II Diabetics on Hemodialysis

Objectives. To evaluate the influence of early nephrology referral on clinical outcome in type II diabetes mellitus patients on maintenance hemodialysis dialysis. Patients and Methods. This study retrospectively analyzed the type II diabetic patients entering our PD program from 02 1988 to 06 2001. Patients who were presented to a nephrologist more than 6 months before starting dialysis were defined as early referral (ER). Patients were considered late referral (LR) if they were transferred to the nephrology department within 6 months before initial dialysis. Results. Hundred and fifteen type II diabetic patients receiving HD for at least 3 months were enrolled in this study. Sixteen of the 53 patients (46.1%) were in the ER group and 62 of the 115 (53.9%) were in the LR group. In univariate analysis by Cox proportional hazards mode, the early referral (Exp (Coef) = 0.423, p