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Hong Kong is unique in the world of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) management by having a
preponderance of over 80% of ESRD patients managed by peritoneal dialysis (PD) even though hemodialysis is the dominant modality for dialysis in Asia. Throughout Asia, 81%
of patients are treated by HD and only 19% by PD. This ratio is reversed in Hong Kong and the only other country in the region where use of PD exceeds that of HD is New
Zealand (see graph below). The Reason? According to the Hong Kong government, they want “to curtail expansionist growth of the cost of ESRD management and the perception
that peritoneal dialysis is, overall, a less costly treatment than hemodialysis.”
In 1999, just over 3000 patients
were receiving dialysis treatment for ESRD in Hong Kong. Eighty-one percent (81%) were treated by PD: a majority by CAPD and only 100 patients treated by automated
peritoneal dialysis (APD) using a cycler. During the years 1995 through 1999, the PD prevalent population grew at an average rate of 11.7% year on year. By contrast, HD
accounted for only 19% of patients treated.
In the past four years, the number of new, incident cases of ESRD in Hong Kong has slowly increased. The average
growth in ESRD incidence in recent years is between 6% and 7%. Source: Hong Kong J Nephrol
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