People with genetic kidney diseases on kidney replacement therapy have different clinical outcomes compared to people with other kidney diseases

Abstract

Despite increasing awareness of genetic kidney disease prevalence, there is limited population-level information about long term outcomes of people with genetic kidney disease receiving kidney replacement therapy. This analysis included people who commenced kidney replacement therapy between 1989 and 2020 as recorded in the Australian and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant registry. Genetic kidney diseases were subclassified as majority and minority monogenic. Non-genetic kidney diseases were included as the comparator group. Primary outcome measures were 10-year mortality and 10-year graft failure. Cox proportional hazard regression were used to calculate unadjusted and adjusted hazard ratios (AHRs) for primary outcomes. There were 59,231 people in the dialysis subgroup and 21,860 people in the transplant subgroup. People on dialysis with genetic kidney diseases had reduced 10-year mortality risk (majority monogenic AHR: 0.70, 95% CI 0.66–0.76; minority monogenic AHR 0.86, 95% CI 0.80–0.92). This reduced 10-year mortality risk continued after kidney transplantation (majority monogenic AHR: 0.82, 95% CI 0.71–0.93; minority monogenic AHR 0.80, 95% CI 0.68–0.95). Majority monogenic genetic kidney diseases were associated with reduced 10-year graft failure compared to minority monogenic genetic kidney diseases and other kidney diseases (majority monogenic AHR 0.69, 95% CI 0.59–0.79). This binational registry analysis identified that people with genetic kidney disease have different mortality and graft failure risks compared to people with other kidney diseases.