Old and new perspectives on peritoneal dialysis in Italy emerging from the Peritoneal Dialysis Study Group Census

The experiences of patients with peritoneal dialysis: A systematic review of qualitative evidence protocol

BACKGROUND

The incidence of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is on the rise, it has been a major public health problem and places a significant burden on healthcare systems. Peritoneal dialysis (PD) is an increasingly popular form of renal replacement therapy. Patients undergoing dialysis treatment undergo specific pathophysiological and psychological changes. The aim of this systematic review is to investigate the experiences of ESRD patients receiving PD in order to gain deeper insights into their attitudes and beliefs towards this treatment. This will help researchers and health professionals to target interventions to improve the quality of life of PD patients.

DESIGN

Protocol for a qualitative systematic review.

METHODS

This systematic review protocol will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) meta-analysis methodology. We will conduct a comprehensive search, including English and Chinese databases. It will include all published qualitative studies of patients' experiences with PD. Both English and Chinese literature will be covered. Two reviewers will independently participate in the literature selection, document selection, and data extraction process. Synthesis will be carried out through in-depth reading of the original text and subsequent creation of similar categories.

RESULTS

Experiencing is a complex dimension that includes physical, psychological and social aspects. This review will enable nurses to gain a deeper understanding of the feelings and beliefs of patients with PD. Our findings will provide healthcare professionals and policy makers with evidence to provide better care for patients with PD.

Are ISPD Guidelines on Peritonitis Diagnosis Too Narrow? A 15-Year Retrospective Single-Center Cohort Study on PD-Associated Peritonitis Accounting for Untrained Patients

Background

Peritoneal dialysis (PD)-associated peritonitis remains by far the most important complication requiring patients to transfer to hemodialysis and has a major impact on patient morbidity and mortality. Current International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis (ISPD) guidelines on peritonitis recommend analysis of peritonitis episodes only in trained patients. In a large tertiary care center, we analyzed peritonitis episodes accounting for different groups of untrained patients and compared these with episodes in the trained patient population.

Methods

We analyzed data collected prospectively over a 15-year time span regarding differences between peritonitis episodes in trained patients and episodes in untrained patients post-catheter insertion but prior to training completion as well as on in-center intermittent PD with respect to incidence rates, pathogenic organisms, outcome, and peritonitis predictors.

Results

In 275 patients, a total of 160 peritonitis episodes in trained patients were counted. A total of 27 additional episodes in untrained patients were recorded. When accounting for these episodes, the peritonitis incidence significantly increased and the percentage of peritonitis-free patients decreased. Peritonitis episodes in untrained patients were most often culture-negative and the pathogen spectrum differed significantly compared with episodes counted as per ISPD recommendations, while outcome of peritonitis episodes did not differ. Predictors of peritonitis after multivariate logistic regression analysis included glomerulonephritis as primary kidney disease, being on home PD rather than being on in-center intermittent PD, and higher dialysis vintage.

Conclusions

Depending on local practice patterns, we argue that centers should additionally monitor peritonitis episodes in untrained patients because computation of statistics as per ISPD recommendations could underestimate peritonitis incidence and may depict a distorted pathogen spectrum.

Dialysis Reimbursement: What Impact Do Different Models Have on Clinical Choices?

Allowing patients to live for decades without the function of a vital organ is a medical miracle, but one that is not without cost both in terms of morbidity and quality of life and in economic terms. Renal replacement therapy (RRT) consumes between 2% and 5% of the overall health care expenditure in countries where dialysis is available without restrictions. While transplantation is the preferred treatment in patients without contraindications, old age and comorbidity limit its indications, and low organ availability may result in long waiting times. As a consequence, 30–70% of the patients depend on dialysis, which remains the main determinant of the cost of RRT. Costs of dialysis are differently defined, and its reimbursement follows different rules. There are three main ways of establishing dialysis reimbursement. The first involves dividing dialysis into a series of elements and reimbursing each one separately (dialysis itself, medications, drugs, transportation, hospitalisation, etc.). The second, known as the capitation system, consists of merging these elements in a per capita reimbursement, while the third, usually called the bundle system, entails identifying a core of procedures intrinsically linked to treatment (e.g., dialysis sessions, tests, intradialyitc drugs). Each one has advantages and drawbacks, and impacts differently on the organization and delivery of care: payment per session may favour fragmentation and make a global appraisal difficult; a correct capitation system needs a careful correction for comorbidity, and may exacerbate competition between public and private settings, the latter aiming at selecting the least complex cases; a bundle system, in which the main elements linked to the dialysis sessions are considered together, may be a good compromise but risks penalising complex patients, and requires a rapid adaptation to treatment changes. Retarding dialysis is a clinical and economical goal, but the incentives for predialysis care are not established and its development may be unfavourable for the provider. A closer cooperation between policymakers, economists and nephrologists is needed to ensure a high quality of dialysis care.

Where Are You Going, Nephrology? Considerations on Models of Care in an Evolving Discipline

Nephrology is a complex discipline, including care of kidney disease, dialysis, and transplantation. While in Europe, about 1:10 individuals is affected by chronic kidney disease (CKD), 1:1000 lives thanks to dialysis or transplantation, whose costs are as high as 2% of all the health care budget. Nephrology has important links with surgery, bioethics, cardiovascular and internal medicine, and is, not surprisingly, in a delicate balance between specialization and comprehensiveness, development and consolidation, cost constraints, and competition with internal medicine and other specialties. This paper proposes an interpretation of the different systems of nephrology care summarising the present choices into three not mutually exclusive main models (“scientific”, “pragmatic”, “holistic”, or “comprehensive”), and hypothesizing an “ideal-utopic” prevention-based fourth one. The so-called scientific model is built around kidney transplantation and care of glomerulonephritis and immunologic diseases, which probably pose the most important challenges in our discipline, but do not mirror the most common clinical problems. Conversely, the pragmatic one is built around dialysis (the most expensive and frequent mode of renal replacement therapy) and pre-dialysis treatment, focusing attention on the most common diseases, the holistic, or comprehensive, model comprehends both, and is integrated by several subspecialties, such as interventional nephrology, obstetric nephrology, and the ideal-utopic one is based upon prevention, and early care of common diseases. Each model has strength and weakness, which are commented to enhance discussion on the crucial issue of the philosophy of care behind its practical organization. Increased reflection and research on models of nephrology care is urgently needed if we wish to rise to the challenge of providing earlier and better care for older and more complex kidney patients with acute and chronic kidney diseases, with reduced budgets.

Clinical management of patients on peritoneal dialysis in Italy: results from the ATENA study

BACKGROUND

In Italy, few studies have examined the clinical management of peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients, resulting in a lack of information and awareness.

METHODS

A total of 378 PD patients (64.7 ± 14.3 years, 58.9% males) were enrolled across 15 centres in a 12-month retrospective and 6-month prospective study. The primary objective was to evaluate the achievement of Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative and Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes guidelines on recommended target values for anaemia, high blood pressure and mineral metabolism. Comorbidities, hospitalizations, treatment and quality of life were also assessed.

RESULTS

Frequent comorbidities included hypertension (87.8%) and cardiovascular disease (39.7%). Peritonitis was the leading cause of hospitalization [12 admissions per 100 person-years (95% confidence interval 9.3-15.2)]. At 6 months, anaemia corrected by erythropoiesis-stimulating agents was observed in 30% of patients and 73% received erythropoiesis-stimulating agents. Systolic and diastolic blood pressures were recorded in 50% and 20% of patients, respectively. Sixty-four percent of echocardiograms revealed left ventricular hypertrophy and 30% of patients had vitamin D <10 ng/mL. Medication to treat intact parathyroid hormone (PTH) included calcitriol (36.3%), paricalcitol (29.2%), cholecalciferol (23.6%) and cinacalcet (21.5%). In a subgroup of patients matched for baseline PTH treated for 1 year, a significant reduction in PTH with paricalcitol (-41%; P < 0.001) but not cinacalcet (+2%; P = 0.63) was observed. Comparison of quality of life domains revealed significant differences for symptoms (P = 0.049), cognitive function (P = 0.019) and social support (P = 0.04) (baseline versus 6 months).

CONCLUSIONS

Hypertension and cardiovascular diseases were frequent comorbidities and peritonitis was the leading cause of hospitalization. Secondary hyperparathyroidism and anaemia were common, thus necessitating frequent monitoring of PTH, calcium, phosphorus and haemoglobin.

Incremental start to PD as experienced in Italy: results of censuses carried out from 2005 to 2014

BACKGROUND

It is not known how widely used in Italy an incremental start to in peritoneal dialysis (Incr-PD) is.

METHODS

By analyzing the peritoneal dialysis (PD) censuses conducted by the PD Study Group (GSDP-SIN) for the years 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014 in all the Centers performing PD in Italy, the use of Incr-PD, i.e. continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) with 1 or 2 exchanges/day or automated peritoneal dialysis (APD) with 3-4 sessions/week, was examined among incident PD patients.

RESULTS

In 2014 PD was started in Italy by 1,652 patients, 455 (27.5%) of whom incrementally (Incr-CAPD 82.2% vs. Incr-APD 17.8%). Incr-PD was used in 53.5% of the 225 Centers. The number of patients and of Centers using Incr-DP increased constantly over the years up to 2012 (in 2005 Incr-PD was used in 33.4% of Centers, and in 11.9% of patients). The use of Incr-PD was greater in Centers with a more extensive PD program and greater use of PD in general. The most widely-used modality in Incr-PD was CAPD.

CONCLUSIONS

Incr-PD is used in Italy in a large number of incident PD patients. The reasons for this increase need to be clarified, as current adequacy targets are based on full-dose studies with a very low glomerular filtration rate (GFR).

Continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis: perspectives on patient selection in low- to middle-income countries

Chronic kidney disease is a major public health problem that continues to show an unrelenting global increase in prevalence. The prevalence of chronic kidney disease has been predicted to grow the fastest in low- to middle-income countries (LMICs). There is evidence that people living in LMICs have the highest need for renal replacement therapy (RRT) despite the lowest access to various modalities of treatment. As continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) does not require advanced technologies, much infrastructure, or need for dialysis staff support, it should be an ideal form of RRT in LMICs, particularly for those living in remote areas. However, CAPD is scarcely available in many LMICs, and even where available, there are several hurdles to be confronted regarding patient selection for this modality. High cost of CAPD due to unavailability of fluids, low patient education and motivation, low remuneration for nephrologists, lack of expertise/experience for catheter insertion and management of complications, presence of associated comorbid diseases, and various socio-demographic factors contribute significantly toward reduced patient selection for CAPD. Cost of CAPD fluids seems to be a major constraint given that many countries do not have the capacity to manufacture fluids but instead rely heavily on fluids imported from developed countries. There is need to invest in fluid manufacturing (either nationally or regionally) in LMICs to improve uptake of patients treated with CAPD. Workforce training and retraining will be necessary to ensure that there is coordination of CAPD programs and increase the use of protocols designed to improve CAPD outcomes such as insertion of catheters, treatment of peritonitis, and treatment of complications associated with CAPD. Training of nephrology workforce in CAPD will increase workforce experience and make CAPD a more acceptable RRT modality with improved outcomes.

How has peritoneal dialysis changed over the last 30 years: experience of the Verona dialysis center

Background

The last decade has witnessed considerable improvement in dialysis technology and changes in clinical management of patients in peritoneal dialysis (PD) with a significant impact on long term clinical outcomes. However, the identification of factors involved in this process is still not complete.

Methods

Therefore, to assess this objective, we retrospectively analyzed clinical records of 260 adult patients who started PD treatment from 1983 to 2012 in our renal unit. For the analysis, we divided them into three groups according to the time of starting dialysis: GROUP A (n: 62, 1983–1992), GROUP B (n: 66, 1993–2002) and GROUP C (n: 132, 2003 to 2012).

Results

Statistical analysis revealed that patients included in the GROUP C showed a reduction in mean patients’ age (p = 0.03), smoking habit (p = 0.001), mean systolic blood pressure (p < 0.0001) and an increment in hemoglobin levels (p < 0.0001) and residual diuresis (p = 0.016) compared to the other two study groups. Additionally, patients included in GROUP C, mainly treated with automated peritoneal dialysis, showed a reduced risk of all-causes mortality and a decreased risk to develop acute myocardial infarction and cerebrovascular disease. Patients’ age, diabetes mellitus and smoking habit were all positively associated with a significant increased risk of mortality in our PD patients, while serum albumin levels and residual diuresis were negatively correlated.

Conclusions

Therefore, the present study, revealed that in the last decade there has been a growth of our PD program with a concomitant modification of our patients’ characteristics. These changes, together with the evident technical advances, have caused a significant improvement of patients’ survival and a decrement of the rate of hospitalization. Moreover, it reveals that our pre-dialysis care, modifying the above-mentioned factors, has been a major cause of these clinical improvements.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12882-015-0051-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Intra-abdominal sepsis--epidemiology, aetiology and management

Peritonitis is a progressive disease leading inexorably from local peritoneal irritation to overwhelming sepsis and death unless this trajectory is interrupted by timely and effective therapy. In children peritonitis is usually secondary to intraperitoneal disease, the nature of which varies around the world. In rich countries, appendicitis is the principal cause whilst in poor countries diseases such as typhoid must be considered in the differential diagnosis. Where resources are limited, the clinical diagnosis of peritonitis mandates laparotomy for diagnosis and source control. In regions with unlimited resources, radiological investigation, ultrasound, CT scan or MRI may be used to select patients for non-operative management. For patients with appendicitis, laparoscopic surgery has achieved results comparable to open operation; however, in many centres open operation remains the standard. In complicated peritonitis "damage control surgery" may be appropriate wherein source control is undertaken as an emergency with definitive repair or reconstruction awaiting improvement in the patient's general condition. Awareness of abdominal compartment syndrome is essential. Primary peritonitis in rich countries is seen in high-risk groups, such as steroid-dependent nephrotic syndrome patients, whilst in poor countries the at-risk population is less well defined and the diagnosis is often made at surgery.

Encapsulating peritoneal sclerosis in children

Encapsulating peritoneal sclerosis (EPS) is a rare but extremely serious complication of peritoneal dialysis (PD). While EPS has been well recognized in adults on long-term PD, and children can spend many years on PD before a transplant becomes available, only a small number of children with EPS have been described. Two European pediatric registries have recently reported on the prevalence, potential risk factors and outcomes of EPS in children. Although the prevalence of EPS is comparable to that published in adult registries, the outcome of pediatric EPS is significantly better and carries a lower mortality. All studies have shown a greater risk of EPS with a longer dialysis vintage, but it is not known why some individuals are susceptible to EPS development. In this review we discuss current views on the epidemiology, pathogenesis and management strategies for EPS. The hope of the authors is that this review will alert pediatric nephrologists to this rare but extremely serious complication of chronic PD. In the future, collaborative research and the establishment of a pediatric EPS registry may be of importance in helping pediatric nephrologists to recognize the early warning signs of EPS development and thereby to develop strategies for its prevention and optimal management.

Prospective Randomized Study Comparing a Single-Cuff Self-Locating Catheter with a Single-Cuff Straight Tenckhoff Catheter in Peritoneal Dialysis

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OBJECTIVES

Peritoneal dialysis (PD) catheters are critical to the success of the technique. However, few studies provide evidence about which design helps to reduce complications. Self-locating catheters (SLCs) are used to avoid displacement of the catheter tip. The incidence of mechanical and infectious complications and catheter survival rate were assessed in Tenckhoff PD catheters. ♦

DESIGN

The prospective randomized study compared drainage problems in 40 incident PD patients using a single-cuff SLCs and 38 patients using a single-cuff, straight Tenckhoff catheter (TC). ♦

RESULTS

No significant differences were observed in the number of complications in the Pre period (from the insertion of the catheter to the start of the technique); however, the number of complications was lower in the SLC group during Post (p = 0.021) and Total period (p = 0.048). The number of problems related to catheter malfunction for each period: Pre, Post, and Total, was significantly lower with SLCs vs TCs (p = 0.018, p = 0.001 and p = 0.003, respectively). Problems were solved more easily with SLCs, using laxatives, with less need for fluoroscopic placement and no need for surgical replacement, as opposed to the TC group: Pre (not significant), Post (p = 0.007), and Total (p = 0.011).Median survival was 39.6 months (30.9 - 48.3) for SLCs and 30.1 months (22.6 - 37.5) for TCs, which is not a significant difference. However, SLCs have a higher malposition-free survival rate. Multivariate logistic regression models only included the variable "type of catheter" as a predictor of malfunction during the Pre period (odds ratio [OR] = 4.154). The Post period included the variables, "type of catheter" (OR = 7.701) and "age" (OR = 1.047), and the Total period only included the variable "type of catheter" (OR = 4.487), which indicates an increased probability of malfunction with the use of TCs vs SLCs. The variables (gender, previous intra-abdominal surgery, body mass index (BMI) and diabetes mellitus) did not add predictive value to the models (p > 0.05). ♦

CONCLUSION

The study confirms the hypothesis that TCs have more malfunctions and a lower malposition-free survival rate than SLCs, and TCs are considered as the highest risk factor for malfunction during all study periods.