Beware! Kidney failure patients on dialysis at early death risk

WASHINGTON: Kidney failure patients on dialysis may be at risk of dying prematurely, especially from cardiovascular causes, due to altered blood clots, a study has warned.

Their blood also has altered coagulation properties, which increases their risk of both bleeding and thrombotic events such as stroke, researchers said.

Researchers from RWTH Aachen University in Germany analysed the blood of 171 chronic hemodialysis patients and found that the patients tended to have a denser clot structure than individuals without kidney disease.

In addition, patients with such compact clots had an increased risk of dying from cardiovascular causes as well as an increased risk of dying from other causes.

Finally, dialysis patients' fibrinogen - a protein that is converted into fibrin during blood clot formation - exhibited certain modifications that were different from fibrinogen from patients without kidney disease.

"Whether better dialysis treatment or medication could improve clot structure needs to be investigated in future studies," said Katharina Schutt from RWTH Aachen University.

The study appears in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.