Ferritin in dialysis-related arthropathy: could it be a possible biochemical indicator of articular chronic pain?

Background: The aim of our study was to evaluate laboratory data behaviour in two dialysis populations, with and without dialysis-related arthropathy and pain.

Methods: We produced an elaboration of more than 160,000 items of biochemical data of 25 dialysis-related arthropathy patients with chronic articular pain, and 25 patients asymptomatic for joint pain and arthropathy. The pain visual analogue scale (VAS) was employed for pain intensity determination.

A method for monitoring vascular access function during hemodialysis.

We tested a new bedside method to determine the function of native arteriovenous fistula in 16 patients performed during hemodialysis without stopping the treatment. We initially measured vascular access flow (Q(a)) in each patient using the Transonic HD01(plus) device. We then measured the pressure in arterial and venous drip chambers at different blood pump flow rates (Q(bset)=0, 50, 100, 250, 300, 350 ml/min).