Cost of renal replacement therapy in Turkey.
RESULTS
By the end 2000, 22224 patients were on renal replacement therapy (RRT) in Turkey. We investigated the cost of RRT in three medical faculties and one private dialysis centre. Yearly expenses were US dollars 22759 for haemodialysis (HD), US dollars 22350 for continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD), and US dollars 23393 and US dollars 10028, respectively, for the first and second years of transplantation (Tx). In the first year, renal Tx was significantly more expensive than CAPD. However, after the first year of renal transplantation, Tx became significantly more economical than both CAPD and HD. The sum of all yearly RRT expenses for the country was US dollars 488958709, which corresponds to nearly 5.5% of Turkey's total health expenditure.


CONCLUSIONS
Measures such as early construction of vascular access, promoting home dialysis and the reuse of the dialysers, strict control of the use of some expensive drugs like erythropoietin and active vitamin D, and also increasing the number of transplantations, especially if pre-emptive transplantation is possible, should be taken into account in order to reduce these expenses.
Erek
Ekrem
E
University of Istanbul, Cerrahpasa Medical Faculty, Department of Nephrology, Istanbul, Turkey. e.erek@mail.com
Sever
MehmetT Sukru
MS
Akoglu
Emel
E
Sariyar
Muzaffer
M
Bozfakioglu
Semra
S
Apaydin
Suheyla
S
Ataman
Rezzan
R
Sarsmaz
Nedim
N
Altiparmak
Mehmet Riza
MR
Seyahi
Nurhan
N
Serdengecti
Kamil
K
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016030:Kidney Transplantation / Q000191:economics*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010531:Peritoneal Dialysis, Continuous Ambulatory / Q000191:economics; D006435:Renal Dialysis / Q000191:economics*; D014421:Turkey