Aging is an important risk factor for peritoneal dialysis-associated peritonitis.

Peritonitis remains a leading complication of peritoneal dialysis (PD). The aim of this obser- vational retrospective cohort study, conducted at our single center, was to determine the risk factors for peritonitis. A Cox proportional hazards model was used for the multivariate analysis. The event investigated was peritonitis, and the variables studied were sex, age, diabetes mellitus, use of statins, and several labora- tory values including albumin and total cholesterol. All PD patients who visited our clinic from January 2005 to September 2011 and who had complete medi- cal records for at least 3 years were included. Among the 82 patients who met the criteria (mean period of observation: 1086 ± 752 days; mean age: 62.0 ± 12.3 years), 47 had experienced at least 1 episode of peritonitis. Aging was a significant risk factor for peritonitis, with a relative risk of 1.04 per year (p = 0.014). In our study, aging—rather than diabetes mel- litus, efficiency of PD, or nutrition status—was an important risk factor for PD-associated peritonitis. Poor PD technique because of advanced age might be one of the reasons for this result.