Background: There is increasing interest in the delivery of out-of-center hemodialysis (HD), particularly in the home setting, but little systematic information about its use and outcome in contemporary incident patients is available.
Patients and methods: Out-of-center HD was defined as HD delivered in a residential setting, mainly at home or in a long-term care facility (such as a nursing home) irrespective of the length and frequency of therapy. All-cause mortality was determined in an observational cohort study of 458,329 adult patients initiating dialysis in the United States with Medicare as a primary payer.
Results: Between 1995 and 2004, out-of-center HD was the initial modality in 1,641 (0.4%) of eligible participants, although there was significant geographic variation. Patients initiating out-of-center HD were younger, more likely to be nonwhite, had fewer comorbidities, a higher median income, and were more likely to be employed than patients initiating in-center HD or peritoneal dialysis (PD). In multivariate analysis, out-of-center HD patients had a higher overall risk of death compared to in-center HD or PD patients (HR = 1.10, 95% CI 1.04, 1.17), although the relative risk of death was lower in younger and healthier patients (HR = 0.78; 95% CI 0.61, 1.00).
Conclusion: Out-of-center HD is not associated with a survival advantage among unselected patients initiating dialysis in the United States. These results call for better characterization of out-of-center HD in national registries, primarily to effectively compare the use, outcomes and potential benefits of home HD to standard therapies.