Journal Watch
LVAD Users – A New Group Who Can Benefit from Home HD
Patients who need a left ventricular assist device prior to heart transplant surgery may develop acute kidney injury as well. Instead of standard in-center HD, a first patient has been trained for and is successfully doing home HD while waiting.
Read the abstract » | (added 2018-02-15)
Tags: Left Ventricular Assist Device, Heart Transplant Surgery, Acute Kidney Injury
A View of the Dialysis Bundle from a Home Perspective
Don’t miss Dr. Tom Golper’s fascinating take on how the CMS bundle for dialysis services affects home treatments.
Read the abstract » | (added 2018-01-11)
Tags: CMS, Home Treatments
Connecting Home HD Patients to Care Teams Reduces Dropout
Nx2me is a telehealth platform that allows patients who use NxStage machines for home HD to send data to and communicate with their care teams. Compared to matched controls, 606 Nx2me users were more likely to successfully complete training and less likely to drop out of home HD.
Read the abstract » | (added 2018-01-11)
Tags: Nx2me, Telehealth, NxStage Machines, Home HD
Peritoneal Membrane Transport and Survival on PD
Among 470 PD patients followed for up to 10 years, high transporters were stable for the first few years, and after 5 years or so, PD adequacy began to slowly fall. The rate of PD transport did not affect patient survival.
Read the abstract » | (added 2018-01-11)
Tags: High Transporters, PD Adequacy, PD Transport, Patient Survival
In-hospital Patient Education Helps “Crash” Dialysis Starts to Consider PD
As many as half of people who start dialysis in the U.S. each year “crash” into a need for treatment with an urgent, unplanned start—and most receive HD with a catheter. The same is true in Germany, but a new structured education program changed the pattern. Compared to patients who started dialysis urgently before the program, those who were educated were significantly more likely to choose PD.
Read the abstract » | (added 2017-12-14)
Tags: Dialysis, Choose PD, PD Education
Olive Oil Polyphenols and Peritoneal Fibrosis
It’s not just for cooking any more. Researchers have studied the ability of components of extra virgin olive oil to prevent or treat fibrosis and thickening of the peritoneal membrane, both in vivo and in vitro. The polyphenols were not able to reverse fibrosis, but did help to prevent it, and the authors suggest further research.
Read the abstract » | (added 2017-12-14)
Tags: Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Fibrosis, Peritoneal Membrane, Polyphenols
Mycophenolate Mofetil (MMF) and Residual Kidney Function in PD
A small randomized controlled trial of people on PD (N=60) looked at whether the immune-suppressing drug mycophenolate mofetil could help protect residual kidney function. After a year, those who received MMF had significantly higher urine volume and urine Kt/V than controls, with no serious complications.
Read the abstract » | (added 2017-12-14)
New UK PD Guidelines
Download a free, full-length PDF if you want to learn how PD equipment, training, dose, infection control, and management of complications are done in the UK.
Read the abstract » | (added 2017-12-14)
Tags: PD Equipment, PD Training, Infection Control, PD Dose, PD Complications Management, UK
Survival in Those Eligible for BOTH PD or Standard In-center HD
Yes, this is yet another survival comparison. A study of almost a decade of people (N=2,032) starting dialysis at seven Ontario clinics looked at mortality only among those who were judged to be suitable for either PD or standard in-center HD by a multidisciplinary team. Both options offered similar survival.
Read the abstract » | (added 2017-12-14)
Who Matters Most for Modality Choice: Clinicians or Patients?
New Zealand has one of the highest rates of home dialysis use in the world—and they still believe there is room for improvement. An online study of all NZ dialysis clinics coupled with a measure of “decisional power” aimed to see who had the most influence on modality choice. While respondents believed that predialysis nurses were most influential, nephrologists still held the most decisional power—and a one point increase in nephrologist decisional power drove a 6.1% rise in home dialysis use.
Read the abstract » | (added 2017-12-14)
Tags: New Zealand, Home Dialysis, Modality Choice, Patients