Eosinophilia in chronic dialysis patients.

We evaluated the incidence of eosinophilia (≥ 400 ~sl) in a stable chronic hemodialysis (CHD) group of 240 patients treated at a singular unit, and compared it with an age and sex mached control group of 189 non-renal outpatients. The incidence in the CHD patients was 13.75 Wa, compared to 2.11 Wa in the con trols (p <0.0002). Parasitic bowel disease was not present in the 35 eosinophilic patients, and only two had a history of allergic disease. Age, sex, time on hemodialysis, and parathormone levels were not different in the CHD patients with and without eosinophilia. Twenty one Out of 124 patients treated on coils had eosinophilia, not different from 12 Out of 116 patients treated on capillaries. Of the 23 HBsAg positive patients, 7 had eosinophilia (30.43 ole), which was significantly different from 26 eosinophilic patients out of 217 HBsAg negative patients (11.97 Wa) (p <0.015). All HBsAg positive patients were dialysed on coils. We therefore compared them with the 101 HBsAg negative patients also dialysed on coils. The respective incidence of eosinophilia was 30.43 % and 13.86 Wa (p <0.058). We conclude that 1) hemodialysis is associated with a high incidence of eosinophilia, which is not related to time on dialysis or to parathyroid status; 2) HBsAg carrier patients show an even higher incidence of eosinophilia. This might be related to the particular immunoreactive status of carrier patients.