Effect of oral supplementation on nutritional indices in chronic hemodialysis patients.
ASN 30th Annual Meeting, San Antonio
J Am Soc Nephrol (Sep) 8:189A 1997
In this study, Clement, et al. performed a retrospective analysis of patients who were hypoalbuminemic at their dialysis center. Of 37 patients such identified, 14 patients received oral supplementation, and 23 did not. The groups were similar at baseline in terms of age, gender, race, incidence of diabetes mellitus, serum albumin levels as well as Kt/V. The patients were well dialyzed with a Kt/V of 1.61 in the supplement group and 1.50 in the control group.
After a 4-months period of follow up, the serum albumin of patients receiving supplements increased by 0.38 ± 0.33 g/dl over baseline, whereas unsupplemented patients had an increase in their serum albumin level of only 0.16 ± 0.25 g/dl. During the 4-month study period, the Kt/V in the supplemented group did not change significantly from 1.61 to 1.69, whereas in the unsupplemented patients the Kt/V levels went from 1.50 to 1.40.
Comment: This interesting abstract suggests that oral nutritional supplements are an effective means of improving visceral protein stores in chronic hemodialysis patients. The study is confounded by the lower dose of dialysis in the unsupplemented group and also due to the small sample size. Additional studies in this area would be of great interest, especially due to the much lower cost of oral supplementation compared to intra-dialytic parenteral nutrition. Michael V. Rocco, M.D., Bowman Gray School of Medicine
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ASN 30th Annual Meeting, San Antonio
CRF by organ system : Nutrition