Malnutrition Inflammation Score cut-off predicting mortality in maintenance hemodialysis patients

Summary Background Malnutrition is a strong predictor of mortality on hemodialysis patients, especially when it is associated with inflammation. Malnutrition Inflammation Score (MIS) is a simple and low cost tool which assesses the presence of malnutrition associated with inflammation. Therefore, the aim is to evaluate if MIS is associated with mortality in patients on maintenance hemodialysis and establish a cut-off to predict mortality at different follow-up periods. Methods Observational retrospective cohort study including 215 patients on hemodialysis between July 2012 and June 2014, censored until November 2015. MIS was used to assess patient's nutritional status at the moment they were enrolled in the study. They were followed for at least 18 months. Results At the end of 18 months, 38 (17.7%) deaths, 20 renal transplants (9.3%), four facilities transference (1.9%), three dialysis method change (1.4%) and one renal function recovery (0.5%) were observed. One hundred seventy one patients completed at least 24 months of follow-up, and during this additional period, there were five deaths and one renal transplant more. Score higher than 7 points was able to predict mortality for both follow-up periods using sensitivity and specificity analysis and ROC curves. Using this cut-off on Kaplan–Meier survival curve, it was possible to confirm the association of MIS with all-cause mortality at 18 months and 24 or more months of follow-up. Finally, Cox multivariate analysis adjusted for demographic, clinical and nutritional variables showed MIS as the only significant predictor of mortality. Conclusion MIS is an independent predictor of mortality in hemodialysis patients.