According to a new retrospective study, severe hypoglycemic and hyperglycemic crises requiring immediate care are highly common in patients with diabetes and end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) who are on dialysis, and are far higher than those reported in nondialysis patients with chronic kidney disease.

Investigators made use of data from the United States Renal Data System (USRDS) registry and identified 521,789 patients with diabetes and ESKD who had at least 3 months of dialysis before the index date and established diabetes as of the index date. Patients were enrolled in the registry from 2013 to 2017. The median duration of dialysis at cohort entry was 3 months and patients were observed for a median of about 2 years. Around 7.9% patients experienced at least one hypoglycemic crisis with an overall incidence rate of 53.64 per 1000 person-years.

A lesser number of patients experienced at least one hyperglycemic crisis from 2013 through 2017 at a rate of 1.8% overall, with an adjusted incidence rate of 18.2 events per 1000 person-years… (Medscape)