Garred LJ, Canaud B, Bosc JY, Leblanc M
Urea kinetic modeling for acute renal failure
43rd Annual ASAIO Conference, Atlanta
ASAIO J (Apr) 43:71 1997

With all the work on dialysis adequacy in chronic renal failure, it is surprising that the only paper of note on adequacy in acute renal failure is by Martine Leblanc and Emil Paganini and their colleagues . Garred et al in this abstract attempt to systematize the kinetics of ARF, using an approach that measures both time averaged urea concentration (TAC) and peak BUN (blood urea nitrogen) concentrations. For various levels of urea generation, and various intermittent dialysis schedules (IRT) and for continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT), the effects of therapy on TAC and peak BUN were compared. It was found that CRRT and IRT had similar effects on TAC urea, but that peak BUN values were reduced using CRRT.

Comment: This is nice work, but it only theoretical. My own view is, that neither TAC nor peak BUN are very important in ARF. Otherwise, we are going back to the days of the National Cooperative Dialysis Study, when adequacy in chronic dialysis was measured in terms of TAC urea. I think (opinion, no evidence, now), that the single greatest mistake in treating ARF patients with minimal residual renal function is, to withhold dialysis based on a low value of the BUN. In my own practice, I have dialyzed on a daily basis patients in whom the BUN was only 40 mg/dl, and I am convinced that the patients benefitted from this intensive therapy (Kru, residual renal function was measured and found to be negligible in these patients). I predict that, just as in chronic therapy, where the move has been to give a similar, large, target dose of dialysis regardless of the protein catabolic rate, we will find that (1) intermittent dialysis works just as well as CRRT, but (2) we are grossly underdialyzing our patients with ARF using IRT, and (3) daily intermittent dialysis for patients with ARF and small amounts of residual renal function will become the norm (perhaps excluding Sundays). Unfortunately, studies in ARF patients are difficult to do, given the high expected mortality rate and the legal climate in the United States. (John T. Daugirdas, M.D., University of Illinois at Chicago)

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43rd Annual ASAIO Conference, Atlanta
Basic hemodialysis : (Intermittent) dialysis for ARF
Basic hemodialysis : Adequacy, prescription, urea kinetics