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Sex Differences in Kidney Disease Identification & Treatment

Sex Differences in Kidney Disease Identification & Treatment

Manfred Hecking (ORCID: 0000-0002-8047-2395)
  • Grant DOI 10.55776/KLI754
  • Funding program Clinical Research
  • Status ended
  • Start March 1, 2019
  • End February 28, 2022
  • Funding amount € 372,488
  • Project website
  • E-mail

Disciplines

Other Human Medicine, Health Sciences (50%); Health Sciences (25%); Clinical Medicine (25%)

Keywords

    Renal replacement therapy initiation, Competing risks analysis, Gender, Mixed methods study, Chronic kidney disease, Sex-specific differences

Abstract Final report

Attentive observers visiting any dialysis unit in the world today, where people with kidney disease receive life-prolonging renal replacement therapy, will notice more men than women dialyzing, at an average proportion of 40% to 60%. Most doctors would reason, that this phenomenon is a consequence of high blood pressure and heart disease, causing the kidneys to fail, and affecting more men than women. However, there are several other reasons for kidney disease (diabetes, nephritis, others), touching men and women alike, or affecting women even more than affecting men. Large population-based studies actually show that more women than men classify as having kidney disease in early chronic kidney disease stages, before the disease requires renal replacement therapy. If women have at least as much early kidney disease as the men, why do fewer women than men start dialyzing? Not even the possibility of faster kidney disease progression in men seems to provide a valid explanation, if one interprets the available studies as a whole. The members of the present study team hypothesize that the under-representation of women on dialysis does not relate to biology, but instead to society, psychology, or financial issues. Important evidence in favor of this hypothesis arises from the large country-differences in the proportion of women versus men on dialysis. For example, only 32% of >75 year-old dialysis patients in Australia and New Zealand in the year 2009 were women (68% men), while 49% were women in the same age group in Canada. What makes Canada different from Australia? We hypothesize that it is the society more than the biology, and in our field of research entitled epidemiology, large regional differences in the data often suggest that. To prove or disprove our assumption, we have designed several epidemiological and biostatistical research objectives. The methodological center piece is to follow the fate of over one million people from the general population (a cohort), among them many with kidney disease. People with kidney disease either end up on dialysis, or they remain sick, and many of them will die. If the women die at faster rates than the men, but do not go on to dialysis, we will have much better proof for the assumption here above. Very refined statistical methods, however, need to be applied to render it plausible that fewer women would have died, had they been able to go on dialysis. If we receive a clear-cut statistical answer, which we believe is very well possible, according to present evidence, we will be able to start a practice-changing campaign that encourages women in Austria and elsewhere to seek timely care for their kidney disease, in the same way as the men.

Worldwide, more men than women initiate kidney replacement therapy, which explains the higher prevalence of men on dialysis (about 60 men to 40 women). In our FWF-funded project, we were able to show that this phenomenon has remained very stable over the past few decades (Antlanger M; Clin J Am Soc Nephrol 2019; 14: 1616; Kainz A; Nephrol Dial Transplant 2019; 34: 1026). However, men have a lower lifetime risk than women to become affected by chronic kidney disease (CKD), as shown by our summary of data from population- based studies in 21 countries (Carrero J J; Nat Rev Nephrol 2018; 14: 151). As part of the present project, we interviewed Nephrology experts, who stated that discrimination against women could at least partially explain the higher rate of men on dialysis (Tong A; Kidney International Reports 2021). However, biological explanations have also been held responsible, e.g. that (1) CKD progresses more slowly in women than men, (2) women with CKD suffer less frequently from cardiovascular diseases, (3) blood pressure in women is a weaker risk factor for CKD-progression than it is in men and (4) women with CKD adopt healthier lifestyles than men, which in turn may be associated with a lower risk of CKD- progression. Our FWF-funded analyses have now shown that these biological factors do not fully explain the higher probability of starting dialysis in men. In the CKD Outcomes and Practice Patterns study (Hecking M; Kidney Int Rep 2022; 7: 410) as well as the general population cohort of the Stockholm CREAtinine Measurements Project (Hodlmoser S; Kidney Int Rep 2022; 7: 444), the probability of initiating kidney replacement therapy was clearly shifted towards men, despite adjustment for age, ethnicity, comorbidities and, in particular, kidney function itself. Despite adjustment, men also had a higher probability than women, to die before kidney replacement therapy initiation. The fact that men and women compete in society has even been the subject of art (see e.g. Edgar Degas` painting "Spartan Girls Challenging Boys"). However, if survival was the ultimate goal of a human being, then men would have to be considered as losing the challenge against women, as women are well known to outlive men in the general population. In our yet unpublished investigation of concepts arising from a qualitative interview study among patients with CKD and their caretakers in Austria, we found that women with CKD might be more eager than men to self-manage their own disease. A quantitative confirmation of these results is in progress. Nevertheless, this qualitative study could already provide a different perspective: Rather than asking if women have to initiate dialysis earlier, should men possibly start dialysis later?

Research institution(s)
  • Medizinische Universität Wien - 100%
International project participants
  • Juan Jesus Carrero, Karolinska Institutet - Sweden

Research Output

  • 430 Citations
  • 16 Publications
  • 2 Disseminations
  • 1 Fundings
Publications
  • 2021
    Title Sex-Specific Differences in Mortality and Incident Dialysis in the Chronic Kidney Disease Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study
    DOI 10.1016/j.ekir.2021.11.018
    Type Journal Article
    Author Hecking M
    Journal Kidney International Reports
    Pages 410-423
    Link Publication
  • 2021
    Title Country-specific sex disparities in living kidney donation
    DOI 10.1093/ndt/gfab305
    Type Journal Article
    Author Kurnikowski A
    Journal Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation
    Pages 595-598
    Link Publication
  • 2021
    Title Nephrologists’ Perspectives on Gender Disparities in CKD and Dialysis
    DOI 10.1016/j.ekir.2021.10.022
    Type Journal Article
    Author Tong A
    Journal Kidney International Reports
    Pages 424-435
    Link Publication
  • 2021
    Title Kidney Function, Kidney Replacement Therapy, and Mortality in Men and Women
    DOI 10.1016/j.ekir.2021.12.024
    Type Journal Article
    Author Hödlmoser S
    Journal Kidney International Reports
    Pages 444-454
    Link Publication
  • 2022
    Title Chronic kidney disease is more prevalent among women but more men than women are under nephrological care
    DOI 10.1007/s00508-022-02074-3
    Type Journal Article
    Author Lewandowski M
    Journal Wiener klinische Wochenschrift
    Pages 89-96
    Link Publication
  • 2018
    Title Sex-specific analysis of haemodialysis prevalence, practices and mortality over time: the Austrian Dialysis Registry from 1965 to 2014
    DOI 10.1093/ndt/gfy322
    Type Journal Article
    Author Kainz A
    Journal Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation
    Pages 1026-1035
  • 2023
    Title Sex specific differences in chronic kidney disease
    Type PhD Thesis
    Author Sebastian Hödlmoser
  • 2023
    Title Perspectives of Nephrologists on Gender Disparities in Access to Kidney Transplantation
    DOI 10.2215/cjn.0000000000000238
    Type Journal Article
    Author Natale P
    Journal Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology
    Pages 1333-1342
    Link Publication
  • 2023
    Title Differences in the epidemiology, management and outcomes of kidney disease in men and women
    DOI 10.1038/s41581-023-00784-z
    Type Journal Article
    Author Chesnaye N
    Journal Nature Reviews Nephrology
    Pages 7-20
  • 2022
    Title Sex Differences in Kidney Transplantation: Austria and the United States, 1978–2018
    DOI 10.3389/fmed.2021.800933
    Type Journal Article
    Author Hödlmoser S
    Journal Frontiers in Medicine
    Pages 800933
    Link Publication
  • 2022
    Title The Other Way Around: Living With Chronic Kidney Disease From the Perspective of Men
    DOI 10.1016/j.semnephrol.2022.04.003
    Type Journal Article
    Author Hecking M
    Journal Seminars in Nephrology
    Pages 122-128
    Link Publication
  • 2022
    Title Sex Differences in the Recognition, Monitoring, and Management of CKD in Health Care: An Observational Cohort Study
    DOI 10.1681/asn.2022030373
    Type Journal Article
    Author Swartling O
    Journal JASN
    Pages 1903-1914
    Link Publication
  • 2020
    Title Patients' perspectives of pain in dialysis: systematic review and thematic synthesis of qualitative studies.
    DOI 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000001931
    Type Journal Article
    Author Zhang K
    Journal Pain
    Pages 1983-1994
  • 2019
    Title Sex Differences in Kidney Replacement Therapy Initiation and Maintenance
    DOI 10.2215/cjn.04400419
    Type Journal Article
    Author Antlanger M
    Journal Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology
    Link Publication
  • 2021
    Title Patient experiences of sleep in dialysis: systematic review of qualitative studies
    DOI 10.1016/j.sleep.2021.01.019
    Type Journal Article
    Author Cheng E
    Journal Sleep Medicine
    Pages 66-76
  • 2020
    Title Sex differences in chronic kidney disease awareness among US adults, 1999 to 2018
    DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0243431
    Type Journal Article
    Author Hödlmoser S
    Journal PLOS ONE
    Link Publication
Disseminations
  • 0 Link
    Title Interview
    Type A magazine, newsletter or online publication
    Link Link
  • 0
    Title KDIGO controversies conference
    Type A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Fundings
  • 2021
    Title Life Sciences 2020 - Closing the Loop in Hemodialysis: A Precision Medicine Approach
    Type Research grant (including intramural programme)
    Start of Funding 2021
    Funder Vienna Science and Technology Fund

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