Risk of death higher for non-Hispanic black children, lower for Hispanic children vs non-Hispanic whites
FRIDAY, Dec. 30, 2016 (HealthDay News) — For children with end-stage renal disease starting renal replacement therapy (RRT) there is racial disparity in the risk of death, according to a study published online Dec. 29 in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
Elaine Ku, M.D., from the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues compared the mortality risk among a cohort of non-Hispanic black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic white children (12,123 children) who started RRT from 1995 to 2011. The children were followed through 2012. About 25 and 26 percent of the children were non-Hispanic black and of Hispanic ethnicity, respectively.
The researchers found that during a median follow-up of 7.1 years, 1,600 children died. The risk of death was 36 percent higher for non-Hispanic black children (95 percent confidence interval, 1.21 to 1.52) and 34 percent lower for Hispanic children (95 percent confidence interval, 0.57 to 0.77), compared with non-Hispanic white children. The higher risk of death in non-Hispanic black children was attenuated after adjustment for transplant as a time-dependent covariate (hazard ratio, 0.99; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.88 to 1.12); the lower risk persisted in Hispanic children (hazard ratio, 0.59; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.51 to 0.68).
“Parity in access to transplantation in children, and improvements in strategies to prolong graft survival, could substantially reduce disparities in mortality risk of non-Hispanic black children treated with RRT,” the authors write.
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