Five-year cost-utility analysis of acute renal replacement therapy: a societal perspective.

Purpose: Assessment of the cost utility (CU) of acute renal replacement therapy (RRT) from a societal perspective during a 5-year follow-up.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional cohort study in a medical-surgical intensive care unit and an acute RRT unit of 410 consecutive patients treated with acute RRT in Helsinki University Hospital in 2000-2002. Five-year survival and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) were assessed and used to calculate quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) in two ways.