Prognostic factors, models and related statistical problems in the survival of end‐stage renal disease patients on hemodialysis

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Abstract
We investigate factors associated with the survival of end‐stage renal disease patients on hemodialysis. A model derived for non‐diabetics includes five significant prognostic factors: age at initiation of dialysis, arteriosclerotic heart disease, cerebrovascular accident, cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. For diabetics, age at initiation of dialysis was the only significant prognostic factor.We also show that (i) a simple exponential model adequately represents hemodialysis survival data, (ii) the relationship between age and survival hazard is not log‐linear and (iii) data for diabetics require independent analysis or inclusion of interaction terms. In this paper, we chose the first approach.