An increasing number of foreigners was observed in Italy even among chronic dialysis patients. We compared demographic, clinical, treatment characteristics and survival probability between groups of Italian and foreign patients with chronic dialysis in Lazio.We analysed data from the Lazio Dialysis and Transplantation Registry from 2004 to 2012 (4,076 prevalent chronic dialysis patients in 31-12-2012). Among 7,970 incident patients, we evaluated, by country of birth, survival probability by using Kaplan-Meier method and mortality risk, through multiple Cox regression.We observed an increase of foreigners among chronic dialysis patients in Lazio from 2004 (4.4%) up to 2012 (7.6%, test for trend: p0,001). Compared with Italians, foreign patients were younger (53.816.3 vs. 68.713.6) and more frequently: women (42.7% vs. 37.7%), HbsAg-positive (18.1% vs. 13.9%), not vaccinated if HBV susceptible (26.8% vs. 20.9%), late referral (21.6% vs. 12.9%) and suitable for kidney transplantation (21.7% vs. 9.9%). Foreigners compared with Italians had higher survival probability at 1 year (91.9% vs. 84.7%) and 5 years (74,6% vs. 51,5%) after chronic dialysis has been started. We observed a lower mortality risk (HR=0.71;IC95%:0.58-0.87) among foreign patients even after adjustment for many potential confounding factors. Our findings suggest that health status and treatment of end stage renal disease, including access to kidney transplantation, were similar between groups of Italian and foreign patients in Lazio. Observed differences in patients' characteristics were probably attributable to younger age of foreigners. However, further analyses are needed to fully explain higher survival probability in chronic dialysis among foreigners compared with Italians.
