Projects & Collaborations

The European QUALity (EQUAL) study on treatment in advanced chronic kidney disease is an ongoing, prospective, observational cohort study in individuals with CKD stage 4 and 5 over the age of 65 across Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The main aim of EQUAL is to investigate how the level of renal function, mortality risk, uraemic signs and symptoms, treatment preferences, and health-related quality of life can be used to provide insight in the benefits and burden of dialysis initiation, and to determine the optimal timing of dialysis initiation.

Since its inception in 2012, over 1700 patients have been included, and data on numerous clinical parameters have been collected over the span of more than 10.000 study visits. Each participant will be followed for a period of up to 8 years with study visits scheduled at every 6 months. Most data collected is part of routine care, and includes information on demographics, lifestyle, uremic signs and symptoms, quality of life, treatment preferences, comorbidity, hospitalizations, treatment characteristics, routine biochemistry, and nutritional status. In addition, an EQUAL biobank containing patient serum and urine samples has been established, which will open up interesting future possibilities for studies in various ‘omics’ fields.

To date, EQUAL has enabled a large number of studies in the advanced CKD population, with subjects varying from polypharmacy, nutrition, quality of life, uremic signs and symptoms, sex disparities, and the prediction of mortality. A list of EQUAL publications is provided below.

We would like to thank all the participants and health professionals participating in the EQUAL study.

The EQUAL consortium is keen to receive research proposals from external investigators for potential analyses.

The ESPN/ERA Registry is a European Registry collecting data on paediatric kidney replacement therapy patients. This Registry has been developed to increase the amount and the quality of information on paediatric kidney replacement therapy.