Effect of serum hepcidin on predicting mortality in hemodialysis patients : a prospective cohort study

Abstract EN

Background: Hepcidin is a key regulator of iron homeostasis, while the clinical utility of hepcidin remains uncertain in hemodialysis (HD) patients.

Objectives: Our study aimed to evaluate the predictive effect of serum hepcidin-25 on mortality in HD patients.

Methods: A prospective observational cohort study of chronic HD patients were conducted at Xuzhou Central Hospital, Jiangsu, China, during years 2015 - 2017.

The data on demographic factors, dialysis vintage, comorbidities, and laboratory measures were collected.

Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was used to compare the effect of serum hepcidin-25 levels on mortality.

Logistic regression models and multivariate Cox proportional hazard models were performed to identify the predictors of all-cause mortality in HD patients.

Results: A total of 159 patients were included in this cohort, who were stratified into three groups by tertiles of hepcidin-25 values, and their 2-year overall mortality rate was 11.94%.

The Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that patients with the highest tertile of serum hepcidin-25 had significantly higher all-cause mortality than in the two lower tertiles (P < 0.001).

Serum hepcidin-25 was an independent risk factor for all-cause mortality after multivariate adjustments using logistic regression models and Cox proportional hazard models.

Conclusions: A higher level of serum hepcidin-25 in chronic HD patients could be associated with increased mortality.

Further studies are needed in a larger size of HD patients with a longer term of follow up.