There are 271 dialysis centers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia having 7,987 machines catering to 18,270 patients. The Ministry of Health (MOH) offers the largest percentage of these facilities with contributions made by the NON-MOH government sector as well as private and charitable sectors. The age distribution of dialysis population showed that the majority of patients are in the age groups (26-65) years (69%). About 9% of the dialysis patients are older than 75 years while only 1% of them are under 15 years.
Hepatitis B seems to be in good control (3%) while hepatitis C continues to be a major problem (10% positivity) among dialysis patients. Of the 18,270 patients on dialysis, about 16% are in the active waiting list for transplantation with another 20% being evaluated for possible inclusion in the waiting list. It is worth mentioning that 66% of the HD patients are hypertensive and 50% are diabetes.
The total number of patients treated by PD had slightly increased from 1,372 patients in 2016 to be 1,389 by the end of the year 2017. Age distribution of PD patients showed that 88% of them are adults while only 12% are children. At the same time, 485 new patients have been registered this year on PD. Total death among PD patients was reported to be about 8% (116 patients). Regarding treating modality, 22% of PD patients are treated by the continuous ambulant peritoneal dialysis (CAPD), 71% by automated/continuous cyclic peritoneal dialysis (APD/CCPD), and only 7% are treated by intermittent peritoneal dialysis (IPD). Three percent of patients on PD are found to be HBsAg+ve and only 2% are HCV antibodies+ve.