Prevalence and Correlates of Willis-Ekbom's Disease/Restless Legs Syndrome in Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis

Willis-Ekbom's disease/restless legs syndrome (WED/RLS) has been described in subjects undergoing hemodialysis (HD). Different studies have reported varying prevalence rates and different factors associated with this condition; however, the results are inconsistent. Thus, this study was conducted to assess the prevalence of WED/RLS in patients undergoing HD. Another aim of the study was to identify if any comorbidities or biochemical factors were associated with this condition. A total of 194 adult patients undergoing maintenance HD were included in this study. They were screened for WED/RLS using International RLS Study Group criteria on the face-to-face interview and clinical examination. Most recent laboratory parameters were gathered from the medical records. In addition, seroreactivity to hepatitis B and C was also recorded. The mean age of all the subjects included in the study was 54.4 +/- 15 years (range: 1892 years); 58.2% were males. The mean duration on HD was 36.6 +/- 19.3 months. WED/RLS was seen in 5.2% of the study subjects. Subjects with and without WED/RLS were comparable with regard to gender (P = 0.23), adequacy of dialysis (P = 0.82), shift of dialysis (P = 0.93), presence of diabetes mellitus (P = 0.91), hypertension (P = 0.26), smoking (P = 0.22), alcohol use (P = 0.45), and reactivity to hepatitis C (P = 0.19) and hepatitis B (P = 0.80), as well as various hematological and biochemical parameters. The prevalence of WED/RLS of 5% in the HD group was higher than in the general population. However, this study could not find any correlation between RLS and any biochemical parameters or comorbidities. This is an important area to be considered in future and requires more work with larger sample size.