Our objective was to examine the association between the Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index (GNRI) and mortality in Korean hemodialysis (HD) patients. We examined the GNRI of 120 maintenance HD patients and followed these patients for 120 months. Predictors for all-cause death were examined using life table analysis and the Cox proportional hazards model. Life table analysis revealed that subjects with a GNRI < 90 (n = 19) had a marginally lower survival rate than did those with a GNRI ≥ 90 (n = 101) (Wilcoxon test, P = 0.048). Multivariate Cox proportional hazards analyses demonstrated that the GNRI was a significant predictor of mortality (hazard ratio 0.966, 95% confidence interval 0.945-0.995, P = 0.018), after adjusting for age, sex, presence of diabetes mellitus, and body weight. These results demonstrate that the GNRI may be a significant predictor of mortality in Korean HD patients.
© 2012 The Authors. Therapeutic Apheresis and Dialysis © 2012 International Society for Apheresis.