Body composition, hydration, and related parameters in hemodialysis versus peritoneal dialysis patients.

Aims: Maintaining euvolemia is an important goal in patients on renal replacement therapy. However, adequate assessment of volume status in clinical practice is hampered by a lack of accurate measuring tools. A new multifrequency bioimpedance tool has recently been validated.

Acute central haemodynamic effects induced by intraperitoneal glucose instillation.

Background: The supposed lack of a haemodynamic impact of peritoneal dialysis (PD) has been challenged recently by the finding of a mild increase of peripheral blood pressure (BP) during an acute dwell. It is not clear whether, besides the effect of changes in intraperitoneal (IP) volume and/or pressure, IP glucose instillation and absorption plays a role in this. Therefore, we tested the impact of IP instillation of glucose on the evolution of central haemodynamic parameters, using SphygmoCor, during an acute dwell with two different glucose concentrations.

The personal dialysis capacity test is superior to the peritoneal equilibration test to discriminate inflammation as the cause of fast transport status in peritoneal dialysis patients.

This study evaluated the potential of the Personal Dialysis Capacity (PDC) test to discriminate fast transport status (FTS) as a consequence of inflammation versus FTS because of other causes. This distinction is important because new therapeutic options such as icodextrin and automated peritoneal dialysis can abolish the negative impact on outcome of FTS if fast transport is not caused by inflammation. A PDC test and a Peritoneal Equilibration Test (PET) were performed in 135 incident PD patients.

Post insertion catheter care in peritoneal dialysis (PD) centres across Europe--Part 2: complication rates and individual patient outcomes.

The first part of this report, which looked at centre policy, showed that there was no consensus on the best way to manage a patient in the rest period between PD catheter insertion and the first use of the catheter for dialysis. This paper intends to investigate if the differences in policy had any effect on complication rate and individual patient outcomes. Data were included from 298 patients of 49 participating centres.

A randomized clinical trial with a 0.6% amino acid/ 1.4% glycerol peritoneal dialysis solution.

Background: Glucose is an accepted osmotic agent for peritoneal dialysis (PD) although it has several drawbacks. Some of these drawbacks have been addressed by the introduction of solutions with low glucose degradation products and physiological pH in dual-chambered bags. Despite this achievement, there is a need for alternative osmotic agents.