Well there's a surprize. Strange thing is, it has to be explained to some people.
Dialysis patients who smoke are much less likely to receive a life-saving kidney transplant and much more likely to die sooner according to researchers from the Health Research Institute (HRI) at the University of Limerick and UL’s Graduate Entry Medical School (GEMS).
The findings, which are published in a study appearing online in the journal BMC Nephrology, provide compelling evidence that smoking reduces overall life expectancy of dialysis patients as well as their overall chances of receiving a kidney transplant.
“Dialysis patients have extremely high premature death rates that are between 10- and 100-fold higher than in the general population, and smoking contributes substantially to lower patient survival,” said Professor Stack, senior author of the study, Consultant Nephrologist at University Hospital Limerick and Director of ULs Health Research Institute. “Smoking is a well-known risk factor for death and disability for patients in the general population. Our study, one of the largest ever conducted; found that smokers have alarmingly high rates of premature death. Quite strikingly, the risks of death were far greater in younger men and younger women than in older patients. Equally concerning, dialysis patients who smoked experienced lower rates of kidney transplantation and thus the opportunity to extend survival and quality of life. These risks were considerable in that smokers were between 26% and 50% less likely to receive a kidney transplant taking all other factors into consideration.
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