Many papers nowadays recommend a development of a direct access to administrative databases as a priority in epidemiological researches. Aim of the present study was to evaluate incidence and prevalence of CKD patients on RRT from administrative datasets in Lombardy region compared with data from RLDT census.
All subjects resident in Lombardy recorded in the administrative databases with the first dialysis from 01/01/2011 to 31/12/2011 were selected and observed for the first 12 months after dialysis and 24 months before it, about
i) Hospital admission and discharge card (SDO)
ii) Diagnostic/therapeutic procedures and outpatient episodes of care,
iii) Drug prescriptions
1682 patients incident to dialysis were identified; 365 died during the 12 months, 28 received renal transplantation: 82% received hemodialysis, 13% peritoneal dialysis and 5% both. The patients detected by administrative dataset were quite similar to incident patients from Registry Census. We consider the administrative data more accurate concerning Lombardy resident population, with the exclusion of patients from other regions and patients who recovered from RRT. 65, 5% are males and median age is 70, 2 yrs. More than 50% were older than 70 yrs. The value incidence was 168 pmp; (100 – 224 pmp) .The higher values were present in districts with older general population. Dialysis access performed were 2081 with a 1.2 hospital admission per patient. Prevalent 2011 patients were 8316, 63% males (857 pmp, range 731-971 pmp) with a median age of 71 yrs and 52% older than 70 yrs. Main hospitalization causes are shown in Fig. 1 and account for 30% of overall hospital admissions.
These first study using administrative databases confirm the possibility to obtain reliable epidemiological information in every Italian region. Further analysis will confirm the usefulness of this method, and the possibility to link administrative databases with clinical observation from nephrologists
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