The Effect of Cigarette Smoking and Previous Hypertension on the Survival of Patients Treated by Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis

Life-table survival curves, computed for 107 patients undergoing CAPD at The London Hospital between July 1979 and March 1983, showed that patient survival at two years was 68% and overall treatment survival was 46%. However, when we excluded satisfactory outcomes of CAPD treatment, such as renal transplantation, as causes of treatment failure, the technique survival at two years was 62.5%. Age, cigarette smoking, and a history of severe hypertension had statistically significant and independent effects on survival and most deaths were due to causes not directly related to CAPD.

Although the literature contains several reports on survival rates in patients on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) (I, 2), we know little about the factors which influence the success of this treatment. We therefore performed an actuarial analysis of patient and treatment survival in 107 patients who started CAPD at The London Hospital between July 1979 and March 1983 and examined the effects of age, sex, cigarette smoking and previous hypertension -factors known to affect survival in the general population.