CKD.TASlink study

The ‘Decision Making About Care for Older People Living with Kidney Failure’ project builds on from the CKD.TASlink study. CKD.TASlink is the first study in Australia to link data for screening of kidney disease from pathology services with health data about kidney treatment, emergency department presentations, hospital admissions, cancer and death.

What did we do?

A dataset was created with the support of the Tasmanian Data Linkage Unit. The dataset linked existing health data collected between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2020, including:

  • Pathology data

  • Public hospital admitted patient data

  • Emergency department data

  • Tasmanian cancer registry

  • Tasmanian death registry

  • Australian and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant registry

Inclusion criteria was individuals aged 18+ with a test for serum creatinine (a marker of kidney function). This created a dataset that included population level biochemical measures on CKD as well as diabetes and hyperlipidemia.

The result was a unique linked dataset containing 490,012 records (~86.7%).

What did we find?

Findings confirm that Tasmania has a high rate of kidney disease. There is significant gender and geographic differences in the incidence and prevalence of kidney disease. Key findings include:

  • 67,200 Tasmanians (35,926 women and 31, 252 men) had CKD between 2004-2020.

  • 22, 544 Tasmanians had CKD during 2010.

  • 37,747 Tasmanians had CKD during 2020.

  • 14,000 Tasmanians with CKD had a kidney function less than 45% (eGFR<45mls/min/1.73m2) putting them in the highest risk category for cardiovascular disease.

  • 3,000 had severe or end-stage kidney disease: 263 were treated with kidney transplants and 217 were treated with dialysis.

  • Testing for urinary albumin was low, with just 43.6% of women and 55.8% of men with stage 3 (moderate kidney function) having both test for kidney disase (an eGFR and uACR) in 2017. Testing is more likely if the resident lives in the North or North West, as well as for people with diabetes.

  • Women were 32% more likely than men to have CKD.

  • There was variation across the state, with the North-West of Tasmania having 45% higher rate of new cases (incidence) and 20% higher rate of established cases of CKD (prevalence) compared with the North or South of Tasmania.

published articles