Global Dialysis Perspective: Korea.

Abstract

According to the Korean ESKD registry (1), in 2018 there were 17,621 incident ESKD patients in Korea. The unadjusted incidence rate was 340.0 per million population (PMP) (Table 1). The number of patients with incident ESKD continued to increase until 2006, plateaued between 2007 and 2009, and rose again from 2010 (Figure 1A). This trend in rising ESKD incidence rate implies increasing burden of CKD, which is attributable to the aging Korean population and high rate of diabetes mellitus (DM) and hypertension. View this table: Table 1. Trends in annual number of patients with incident ESKD and incidence rates of ESKD in the Korean population, 2000–2018 Figure 1. Trends in the annual number of patients (A) with incident ESKD or (B) with prevalent ESKD by modality in the Korean population, 2000-2018. The number of patients with incident and prevalent HD has steadily increased. The number of patients with incident and prevalent PD continuously declined since 2006. The number of kidney transplants has gradually increased and plateaued since 2016. On December 31, 2018, there were 103,984 patients with prevalent ESKD in Korea, representing a 271% increase since 2000. The unadjusted prevalence rate was 2006.4 PMP (Table 1), which ranked high globally (2). Prevalence rate of ESKD has steadily increased year after year (Figure 1B). Hemodialysis (HD) was the predominant form of ESKD treatment modality in all years in both patients with incident and prevalent ESKD. The number of patients with incident peritoneal dialysis (PD) rapidly increased from the late 1990s and peaked in 2006 ( n =2568), then declined every year until 2018 ( n =735, a decrease of 71%) (Figure1A, Table 1). The ratio of HD to PD gradually changed from 68.9:31.1 in 2006 to 95.3:4.7 in 2018 in patients with incident ESKD, and from 78.4:21.6 in 2006 to 92.5:7.5 in 2018 in patients with prevalent ESKD …