Pill-burden and its association with treatment burden among patients with advanced stages of chronic kidney disease.

Introduction: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with multimorbidity and high treatment burden. Pill-burden is one component of the overall treatment burden. However, little is known about its magnitude and contribution to the overall treatment burden among patients with advanced stages of CKD.

Assessment of treatment burden and its impact on quality of life in dialysis-dependent and pre-dialysis chronic kidney disease patients.

Background: The management of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and its complications places a significant burden on patients, resulting in impairment of their health-related quality of life (HR-QOL). Little is known about treatment-related burden in pre-dialysis and hemodialysis (HD) CKD patients.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the magnitude of treatment-related burden and its impact on HR-QOL among patients with CKD.

Nutritional status and outcomes in hemodialysis patients from the Gulf Cooperation Council countries enrolled in the dialysis outcome and practice patterns study phase 5 (2012-2015).

Nutrition is an important factor in maintaining good health of hemodialysis (HD) patients, affecting their morbidity and mortality. The Dialysis Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study (DOPPS) is an international observational study assessing differences in dialysis practices and outcomes across >20 countries. Here, we present the results for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries regarding nutrition data and its relationship with outcomes as a part of the DOPPS Phase 5 study (2012-2015).

Successful use of a bivalirudin treatment protocol to prevent extracorporeal thrombosis in ambulatory hemodialysis patients with heparin-induced thrombocytopenia.

Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) is an uncommon problem in hemodialysis (HD) patients. There have been a few reports on the use of lepirudin, argatroban, or danaparoid in the management of extracorporeal thrombosis (ECT) during dialysis in these patients, because heparin is contraindicated. Here, we report the first long-term use of bivalirudin to prevent ECT.

Erythropoietin-stimulating agents in the management of anemia of end-stage renal disease patients on regular hemodialysis: a prospective randomized comparative study from Qatar.

Despite extensive use, to the best of our knowledge, no trial has simultaneously compared the three currently used erythropoietin-stimulating agents (ESAs) in a prospective manner in the treatment of anemia of end-stage renal disease patients. All hemodialysis patients in Qatar who were treated with short-acting epoetin alfa or beta have been screened. Eligible patients had been prospectively randomized, either to continue on the previous regimen of epoetin or to receive darbepoetin alfa or continuous erythropoietin receptor activator (CERA) for a total period of 40 weeks.