Sterile Peritonitis in the Peritoneal Dialysis Patient

Peritonitis is a serious and common problem in the peritoneal dialysis (PD) population. Abdominal pain, fever, and cloudy PD fluid usually heralds the onset of infective peritonitis. However, in up to 20% of cases, no organism is identified. In these situations, diagnosis can be made only by excluding a microbiological cause and performing a cytological examination of the PD fluid to determine the cellular or noncellular constituents. This review examines the differential diagnosis of sterile peritonitis and uses cytological examination to facilitate the appropriate diagnosis.

Noninfectious causes of cloudy peritoneal dialysate

The appearance of cloudy dialysate fluid in combination with the clinical manifestations of peritonitis usually heralds infectious peritonitis. Diagnosis is readily established in most cases by routine culture of the turbid dialysate. However, an occasional patient presents with culture-negative, cloudy dialysate. After ruling out atypical infectious etiologies, a diverse set of aseptic causes remains in the differential diagnosis. Herein we review these causes and suggest an organizational scheme, based on identifying the cellular or noncellular constituent producing the dialysate turbidity, to facilitate appropriate diagnostic and therapeutic interventions.