A retrospective multicenter survey of the 230 chronic dialysis centers in metropolitan France, conducted between January 1 1998 and December 31 1992, to assess the incidence, causes and features of severe valvular heart disease among chronic dialysis patients, identified 98 patients. The annual incidence was estimated to be 15 to 19 cases per 10,000 dialysed patients. The most common etiologies were calcific valvular disease (69%) and endocarditis (19%). Calcific valvular disease led mostly to aortic stenosis, whereas endocarditis primarily caused mitral insufficiency. Two valves were damaged in 32% of the endocarditis patients versus 9% of those with calcific valvular disease. Sixty-one patients underwent surgery. Median overall survival after surgery was 25 +/- 3.0 months. Patients who underwent surgery for calcific valvulopathy, aortic stenosis or only aortic valve replacement had a median survival of 36 months. Patients who underwent surgery for endocarditis or replacement of 2 valves had a median survival of < 12 months. Actuarial survival of surgical patients differed significantly between: i) the patients for whom presurgical evaluation showed a single valvular lesion and those with multiple valvular lesions (p = 0.002), ii) the patients who had surgery to replace a single heart valve and those who had another type of surgery (p = 0.001), and iii) the patients who had surgery to insert a single aortic prosthetic heart valve and those who had another type of surgery (p = 0.004). Multivariate analysis (including etiologies, number of valvular lesions and type of surgery) showed that survival was significantly dependent only on the number of severe valvular lesions (p = 0.002). Five patients with severe calcific aortic stenosis died before scheduled surgery could be performed. These data suggest that, for patients on chronic dialysis, calcific aortic stenosis is the most frequent form of severe valvular disease. Because aortic stenosis progresses rapidly in these patients and thus quickly leads to irreversible cardiac failure, the operative risk, although high in this population, seems acceptable when only one valve is affected.