Prevalence of Peripheral Vascular Calcification in Chronically Kidney-Diseased Patients on Regular Hemodialysis Using Plain X-Ray Method

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) represents one of the most common causes of death on dialysis patients, which increasingly accepted as a part of excess vascular calcification that highly prevalent in patients maintained on chronic hemodialysis. This study aims to assess the prevalence of vascular calcifications among patients undergoing hemodialysis in Iraqi Center of Dialysis in Baghdad teaching hospital, and to identify the associated risk factors. A total of 94 end stage renal disease patients on regular hemodialysis from July (2024) to January 2025 were enrolled, and subjected to estimation the prevalence of vascular calcifications among those patients using Adragao score where plain X-ray of the hands and pelvis were used. Additionally, patient’s characteristics and possible risk factors were compared. The findings revealed that there were 60.42% (58/94) men and 39.58% (36/94) women were undergoing dialysis. The median age of the study population was 52 years (ranged from 44 to 60 years) and a median duration of dialysis of 24 months (ranged from 6 60 months). The majority of study patients were diabetic (82.98%) and 71.27% were diagnosed with a hypertension; while, 39.36% were having vascular calcification (Adragao score >3). Statistically, duration of dialysis (p value = 0.022), diabetes (p value = 0.015), calcium phosphate product (p value = 0.025), and serum phosphate (p value = 0.044) were associated with vascular calcifications. No significant association was found between vascular calcifications and age, gender, hypertension, corrected calcium level. In conclusion, vascular calcifications are moderately prevalent among patients undergoing hemodialysis at this center, and were found to be correlated with diabetes, duration of dialysis, calcium phosphate product, and phosphate. A larger, multicenter, prospective study need to be conducted at national level, in order to confirm the findings of this study and to identify further modifiable risk factors.