Optimizing Dialysis Treatment for Women
Women with kidney failure may not be getting enough dialysis treatment, according to several recent articles in the medical literature. With high efficiency membranes, dialysis can be accomplished with treatment three times per week, 2 to 4 hours per session. But is this enough?
Clearly, longer and more frequent dialysis sessions provide a better approximation to normal kidney function. But the patient's quality of life is adversely affected by spending too much time hooked to a machine. So from the beginning of the dialysis era, researchers have given considerable attention to finding the optimum treatment dosage.
The concentration of urea in the blood is the standard measure of dialysis results, not because it's the most important molecule to be filtered out, but because it's easy to measure and it diffuses quickly. Urea is distributed throughout the total volume of water in the body, to a reasonable approximation. A kinetic equation based on simplifying assumptions provides an index of dialysis effectiveness based on the efficiency of the dialysis membrane, the time of treatment, and the volume of water in the patient's body. This index is Kt/V, where:
K = rate constant for the dialysis machine,
t = time of treatment,
V = distribution volume for urea (volume of water in the patient's body)
As technology has advanced to make more efficient dialysis membranes, the time for dialysis treatment has decreased (higher K and lower t).
Body size is the standard parameter used to calculate dialysis dose for individual patients. The volume of water in the body can be calculated from weight, age, and gender. However, observational studies have shown that smaller patients have poor results relative to larger patients. Thus researchers have explored other parameters, and reported these results:
1. Calculations based on the mass of high metabolic rate organs would require a substantial increase in dialysis dose for both male and female patients with small body size.
2. Using liver size, predicted from liver-specific anthropometric equations, would require more dialysis for women of any body size.
We value and respect the experiences of all of our HERWriters, but everyone is different. Many of our writers are speaking from personal experience, and what's worked for them may not work for you. Their articles are not a substitute for medical advice although we hope you can gain knowledge from their insight.
Add a CommentComments
There are no comments yet. Be the first one and get the conversation started!