1Postgraduate Program in Nephrology 2Postgraduate Program in Genetics and Molecular Biology 3Faculty of Medicine Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul Porto Alegre Brazil Email: ane_nunes{at}hotmail.com
Sir,
About 510% of chronic dialysis patients have adult dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD). Few epidemiological data on this disease are available in Brazil. The purpose of our investigation was to study the prevalence of ADPKD in Porto Alegre, a city in the south of Brazil.
Case. We studied patients in 15 haemodialysis centers, searching in particular for patients who had a family history and imaging findings compatible with the diagnosis of ADPKD. The control group was composed of patients who were also on dialysis but did not have evidence of this hereditary disease.
Of the 975 adult patients that composed the study population, 74 had ADPKD as the primary cause of chronic renal failure, corresponding to 7.6% of the total dialysis patient population in Porto Alegre (Table 1).
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Similar findings to ours have been published in other countries. In the USA, 810% of dialysis patients have this diagnosis [2]. In European studies, the prevalence of this pathology is about 10% [3]. As the majority of the Porto Alegre population is of European descent, we can state our data are compatible with data from other white populations. A lower prevalence is found in Asia, where only 2.53.2% of dialysis patients have ADPKD [4].
ADPKD affects both sexes similarly [4]. In our sample, there were more men (53%) than women (47%). This difference, though not significant, may be partially explained by the higher number of men than women in chronic dialysis programmes.
Conflict of interest statement. None declared.
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