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During the congress, E-Posters will be accessible to all participants on the congress website 24/7, as well as in the E-poster stations in the congress center.
Preparing your E-Poster
Please review the E-Poster format requirements carefully when preparing your E-Poster. Should your E-Poster not meet the mentioned requirements, it may not be displayed as described above.
E-Poster Submission Deadline
Please prepare and upload your E-Poster no later than March 14, 2026 11.59PM CET. After this date, you will no longer be able to prepare and upload your E-poster and it will not be displayed and accessible on the congress website.
Please follow the instructions below to input your abstract title.
Abstract titles should be brief and reflect the content of the abstract.
Oral intake discontinuation is frequently encountered at the end-of-life among patients undergoing hemodialysis, yet its timing and clinical implications have not been well described. This study aimed to explore the circumstances surrounding oral intake discontinuation in patients receiving hemodialysis, using routinely available clinical data to provide insights that may inform shared decision-making and advance care planning.
We retrospectively collected data from electronic medical records of all patients undergoing hemodialysis who were admitted to inpatient facilities in Yamagata, Japan, between June and December 2018. Variables included oral intake discontinuation, physiological parameters, and dialysis-related characteristics. Oral intake discontinuation was defined as the complete discontinuation of hospital-prescribed meals with no actual meal intake for more than one day; comfort feeding was not considered discontinuation in this study. Continuous variables were summarized as medians with interquartile ranges (IQRs), and categorical variables as frequencies with percentages. The cumulative incidence of events was estimated using Kaplan–Meier analysis, and univariate Cox proportional hazards models were used to explore associations with event occurrence. Ethical approval was obtained (2025–05).
We identified 119 admissions, among which 58 patients were included in the analysis. Eleven patients (19.0%) were right-censored for various reasons, and six patients (10.3%) were fully observed. During the observation period, 41 patients (70.7%) experienced oral intake discontinuation. Among these patients, the median age at discontinuation was 84 years [IQR 79–87]. At discontinuation, the median laboratory and functional values were as follows: serum albumin 2.50 [2.40–2.80] g/dL, blood urea nitrogen (BUN) 49.6 [39.9–58.1] mg/dL, serum creatinine 5.12 [3.81–5.83] mg/dL, C-reactive protein (CRP) 1.73 [0.48–4.06] mg/dL, hemoglobin 9.80 [8.80–10.70] g/dL, phosphate 3.00 [1.20–3.90] mg/dL, Functional Independence Measure (FIM) motor score 21.0 [14–37], and cognitive FIM 39.0 [27–57]. The median time from oral intake discontinuation to hemodialysis withdrawal was 18 [2–80] days, and from discontinuation to death was 21 [3–81] days. In univariate Cox analyses, older age, higher serum creatinine and CRP levels, lower serum albumin and FIM scores at admission were significantly associated with an increased risk of oral intake discontinuation.
Oral intake discontinuation represents a key clinical milestone signaling the transition to end-of-life in hemodialysis patients. Future studies should examine its potential as a clinical indicator to support end-of-life care decisions.
