A recent meta-analysis has investigated differences between dialysis-dependent participants in large, multi-centre randomised clinical trials (RCTs) and other people from the general population undergoing dialysis. Differences in age, comorbidities and mortality rate were examined. From 189 trials (80,104 participants), it was found that participants in RCTs were younger, more likely to be men, more likely to have coronary artery disease, less likely to have diabetes/diabetic nephropathy, less likely to have heart failure and had a considerably lower mortality rate in comparison to other patients with end-stage kidney disease in the US national registry. The study suggests that caution is needed if the results from randomised clinical trials are to be generalised to the broader population undergoing dialysis, and that more caution is needed in study design to rectify this issue. Read more details of the study, published in the JAMA, here.