Age at Dialysis Initiation

Live query on ptdatacomplete — chart updates whenever the table changes.
Generated: 2026-09-21 23:14
Total patients
612
Peak group
60-69 y
147 patients (24%)
Started <40 y
17.5 %
107 patients
Started ≥65 y
20.8 %
127 patients
Distribution by age group
Share of total
Automatic analysis
Largest group: 60-69 years — 147 patients (24% of the programme).
Suggested action: Match dietitian, nursing and social-work capacity to this dominant cohort.
17.5% of patients started dialysis before age 40 — a meaningful early-onset burden (107 patients).
Suggested action: Review causes in this cohort; consider family screening and earlier nephrology referral for at-risk relatives.
Elderly burden (20.8%) is below the level that usually requires dedicated geriatric planning.
Suggested action: Continue current care model.
Working-age core (40–69) accounts for 61.8% of the programme (378 patients).
Suggested action: Protect access patency and transplant workup in this group — they carry the longest dialysis-years and highest rehabilitation potential.
What this parameter means

The age of a patient when they begin maintenance dialysis. One value per patient, fixed forever. It describes the case-mix of your programme and the epidemiology of end-stage kidney disease in your catchment area.

Why it matters
  • Young (<40): lifetime on dialysis → transplant priority, access preservation, psychosocial support, fertility counselling.
  • 40–69: working-age core → rehabilitation, employment support, transplant workup.
  • 65+: frailty, comorbidity, falls, polypharmacy → geriatric pathway and shared decision-making (including conservative care).
  • Distribution shape tells you where to invest: paediatric transition, adult prevention, or elderly care.
Action plan — review every 6 months
  1. Profile the under-40 cohort (107 patients). Add aetiology, referral source and eGFR at first nephrology contact — this is the highest-yield prevention target.
  2. Audit late referral. Count patients who started dialysis within 90 days of first nephrology contact — that is your preventable "crash-landing" rate.
  3. Primary-care screening. Work with GPs on annual eGFR + urine ACR for diabetics and hypertensives; add family screening for hereditary disease.
  4. Geriatric pathway. With 127 patients 65+, formalise geriatric assessment, falls prevention, advance-care planning and a documented conservative-kidney-management option.
  5. Plan capacity by age mix. Young patients need decades of access planning and transplant workup; elderly patients need more beds, transport and social support per session.
  6. Protect the data. Reject rows without DOB or SOT at data entry so this page stays reliable.
  7. Benchmark. Compare your mean and median age at initiation with your national renal registry once a year.
Distribution table
Age groupPatients%Distribution
<20 18 2.9%
21-24 17 2.8%
25-29 22 3.6%
30-34 24 3.9%
35-39 26 4.2%
40-49 87 14.2%
50-59 144 23.5%
60-69 147 24%
70-79 94 15.4%
80+ 33 5.4%
Total 612 100%