Abstract
The objective of this study was to assess the value and determinants of erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) in stable patients on regular hemodialysis (HD). Pre-dialysis and post-dialysis ESR was measured in a group of stable adult patients on regular HD and the results were compared. The results were also correlated with the patients' demographic and laboratory data. Only stable patents were included in the study. Patients with evidence of current infection, active inflammatory processor malignancy and severe anemia were excluded. We recruited 161 patients in the study of whom 44.1% were males, 53.4% had diabetes mellitus and 40.4% had an episode of sepsis previously. Only 15.5% of the patients had less than one year of dialysis and 54.3% were over the age of 60 years. The mean post-dialysis ESR was significantly higher than the pre-dialysis ESR (55.6 +- 30.4 and 49.8 +- 28.5, respectively; P = 0.003). Pre-dialysis, 79.5% of the patients had raised ESR. ESR was significantly correlated with C-reactive protein, serum ferritin, plasma albumin and fibrinogen (P <0.05). Patient factors (age, gender, duration of dialysis, previous renal transplantation, type of dialysis access and sepsis or thrombosis of dialysis access site) and blood laboratory parameters (hemoglobin, serum creatinine and serum parathormone) had no statistically significant correlation with ESR ( P >0.05). Post-dialysis the ESR was raised in most of the stable patients on regular HD and was significantly higher than the pre-dialysis ESR (by, on average, 5.8 mm/h). ESR had variable correlation with different blood factors.