Tobacco and end stage renal disease: a multicenter, cross-sectional study in Argentinian Northern Patagonia.

Background: Smoking and chronic kidney disease are major public health problems with common features -high prevalence and mortality, high cardiovascular risk, gender differences and high prevalence in low income people-, but the link between them is poorly recognized. Our objectives were to investigate the exposure of dialysis patients to tobacco and to know their smoking behavior.

Methods: We performed a multicenter, cross-sectional study in nine dialysis units in the Argentinian Northern Patagonia.