Self-reported chronic kidney disease and the risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality: outcome-wide association study of 54 causes of death in the National Health Interview Survey

Background A diagnosis of chronic kidney disease has been strongly associated with cardiovascular disease and mortality in a number of studies, but the association with specific causes of death has not been assessed in detail. We analysed the association between chronic kidney disease and all-cause mortality and 54 causes of death in the National Health Interview Survey, a prospective study of 210,748 US adults. Methods We used multivariable Cox regression models to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for all-cause and cause-specific mortality associated with self-reported chronic kidney disease. Men and women aged 18-84 years were recruited between 1997 and 2004 and followed up for mortality through December 31, 2006. Results During an average of 6 years follow-up, 9564 deaths occurred. A history of chronic kidney disease vs. no chronic kidney disease was associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality (HR = 2.69, 95% CI: 2.38-3.04), and mortality from septicemia (5.65, 2.84-11.25), viral hepatitis (10.67, 2.43-46.95), other infectious parasitic diseases (10.58, 3.59-31.21), total cancer (1.48, 1.05-2.09), lung cancer (1.94, 1.10-3.44), kidney cancer (4.74, 1.81-12.41), diabetes mellitus (8.57, 5.60-13.11), circulatory disease overall (3.36, 2.70-4.18) and 11 specific circulatory diseases with the strongest associations observed for primary hypertension/renal disease (13.60, 6.42-28.84), hypertensive heart/renal disease (10.72, 2.47-46.49), and other diseases of circulatory system (7.36, 3.22-16.81). Elevated risk was also observed for alcoholic liver disease (5.63, 1.90-16.66), other chronic liver disease (4.41, 1.74-11.17), kidney failure (13.07, 8.23-20.77), and five other causes of death. Conclusions A history of chronic kidney disease was associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality and 27 out of 54 causes of death. Further studies are needed to clarify associations with less common causes of death.