An epidemiologic study of renal failure. I. The need for maintenance hemodialysis.

A nationwide morbidity study of end-stage kidney disease in Israel revealed a mean annual incidence rate, in the two-year period 1965-1966, of 70 cases per million per year requiring maintenance hemodialysis in the age 15-59 Jewish population. Chronic glomerulonephritis (38%) chronic pyelonephritis (24.9%) and polycystic disease (8.1%) represented the three most common diagnostic entities. It is suggested that the load of new cases on available dialysis units will not increase indefinitely but that an equilibrium will be established between the intake of new candidates and the outflow due to deaths and transplantation.