APD schedules and clinical results.

This chapter exposes the clinical effects of different APD schedules. Clinical studies have shown that Na removal is lower with APD compared to CAPD. Therefore the loss of residual renal function requires continuous therapy with long day-dwell of polyglucose dialysate. Peritoneal small molecule clearances are closely determined by the hourly dialysate flow rate (and not the dwell time, which is a concept coming from equilibrium PD techniques as CAPD) with a maximum reached by 3 l/h for average transporter patients. On the other hand, the optimal intraperitoneal volume should be 1500 ml/m(2) of BSA, and less if the hydrostatic intraperitoneal pressure is higher than 18 cm H(2)O. The optimization of the nocturnal APD session depends on the knowledge of the individual drain flow profile. A new schedule, called 'BreakPoint-APD' is based on the automatic adaptation to the drain profile for each patient and for each cycle. It increases clearances by about 10% compared to tidal and CCPD, though reducing the number of nocturnal alarms. The future of APD is likely to continue thanks to further simplification in the machine use, i.e. with improvements in cycler technology.