Bacteremia and Mortality among Patients with Nontunneled and Tunneled Catheters for Hemodialysis

Table 1

Clinical and laboratory characteristics of patients and catheters.

	Nontunneled catheter N = 422	Tunneled catheter N = 248	value
Age (in years)^a	54.9 (47.3–64.7)	57.3 (43.9–67.1)	0.629
Diabetes mellitus^b	93 (22%)	59 (23.8%)	0.601
Hemoglobin (g/dl)^a	9.1 (7.9–10.7)	9.2 (8.2–10.4)	0.614
Albumin (g/dl)^a	3.5 (3.1–3.9)	3.7 (3.4–4)	<0.0001
Kt/V^a	1.25 (1.1–1.5)	1.3 (1.1–1.5)	0.005
Catheter use time (days)^a	37 (17–80)	185 (75–344)	<0.0001
Insertion site^b			<0.001
Right jugular	194 (46.0)	78 (31.5)
Left jugular	89 (21.1)	28 (11.3)
Right subclavian	21 (5.0)	63 (25.4)
Left subclavian	12 (2.8)	33 (13.3)
Right femoral	75 (17.8)	23 (9.3)
Left femoral	31 (7.3)	23 (9.3)

^aMedian (1^st quartile–3^rd quartile); ^babsolute number (%).