Physical examination for the detection of hypervolemia among patients on chronic dialysis: A diagnostic-test study.

Introduction: Assessment of dry-weight among patients on dialysis is challenging in the absence of reliable markers to define fluid overload (FO). This study aimed to explore the value of two simple clinical signs, pedal edema, and crackles at pulmonary auscultation, in diagnosing hypervolemia, using bioimpendence spectroscopy (BIS) as reference standard.

Methods: In a cohort of 107 asymptomatic dialysis patients, FO was assessed with physical examination and BIS shortly before the mid-week dialysis session.

Prevalence and control of hypertension among patients on haemodialysis.

Background: Earlier studies provided considerably variable estimates on the prevalence and control rates of hypertension in haemodialysis because of their heterogeneity in definitions and blood pressure (BP) measurement techniques applied to detect hypertension.

Materials And Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 116 clinically stable haemodialysis patients from 3 dialysis centres of Northern Greece underwent home BP monitoring for 1 week with the validated automatic device HEM-705 (Omron, Healthcare). Routine BP recordings taken before and after dialysis over 6 consecutive sessions were also prospectively collected and averaged.