Kidney Dialysis Related Infection Rates Higher in US

Preventable bloodstream infections related to kidney failure treatment are more common in US Blacks and Hispanics than in whites.

This is according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released on Monday.

“Use of neck veins for administration of hemodialysis was the most important risk factor, but not the only one,” Researchers said in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Using data from multiple national databases collected between 2017 and 2020, they estimated that potentially deadly Staphylococcus (or S.) aureus bloodstream infections occurred in 4,751 of every 100,000 Black patients receiving hemodialysis and 4,500 of every 100,000 Hispanic patients compared with 3,866 of every 100,000 white late-stage kidney disease patients receiving these treatments.

Roughly 40% of the infections were resistant to treatment with the antibiotic methicillin, the report found.

Reuters/Oyenike Oyeniyi