Mastrangelo F, Alfonso L, Napoli M, Russo F, De Blasi V
Long-term results of a dialytic schedule with increased frequency of HD sessions
17th Annual CAPD Conference
Perit Dial Int Suppl 1 (Feb) 17:S80 1997

In this abstract, some extremely high survivals are reported for patients following a 4x/week or every other day dialysis schedule, where relatively short dialysis session lengths (150-180 min) were used. Session Kt/V was in the range of 1.1, apparently, but no data are given. It is said that 31% of patients were "high risk", although mean age at onset of dialytic therapy was 46 years. This more intensive dialysis schedule has apparently been used since 1978. Survivals were quite high, 970% at 1 year, 89% at 2 years, 79% at 3 years, and 56% at 10 years.

Interestingly, all or most of these patients had AV fistulae, with survivals of 100% at 1 year, 99% at 3 years, and 93% at 6 years.

Comment: I don't think that the actual amount of dialysis being given greatly exceeds that given many patients in the United States, nor do I believe that use of an alternate day schedule was responsible for this program's astoudingly high survival rates. Cardiovascular disease caused only 11% of deaths, and sepsis only 5% of deaths. I am very impressed with the high AV fistula survival. I believe the low sepsis incidence may have been due to the prevalent and very successful use of fistulae. The low cardiovascular death rate may be due to patient selection and to the relatively young age of the patients involved. It is quite possible, however, that using a qod dialysis schedule or 4x/week schedule also affords significantly reduced mortality. (John T. Daugirdas, M.D., University of Illinois at Chicago)

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17th Annual CAPD Conference
Basic hemodialysis : Adequacy, prescription, urea kinetics
Basic hemodialysis : Home hemodialysis