Peritoneal Transport Characteristics, Comorbid Diseases and Survival in CAPD Patients

Objective To evaluate the influence of initial peritoneal transport rate, serum albumin concentration, and comorbid diseases on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) patient survival.Design A prospective single-center study with a long-term follow-up.Patients A total of 213 consecutive CAPD patients, who underwent a peritoneal equilibration test (PET) at a mean of 7 days (range 3 – 30 days) after beginning CAPD, were included in this study. One hundred twenty patients were male, 116 patients had comorbid diseases, and mean age was 49.5 years (range 18 – 76 years).Methods A modified PET was performed using 4.25% glucose dialysis solution. Based on the dialysate-to-plasma creatinine concentration ratio at 4 hours’ dwell (D 4 /P 4 Cr, 0.62 ± 0.14), patients were divided into high (H), high-average (HA), low-average (LA), or low (L) transporters.Results Of 213 patients, 16.9% were classified as H transporters, 30.5% as HA, 36.6% as LA, and 16.0% as L transporters. The H transporter group had a higher proportion of men, higher proportion of patients with comorbid diseases, lower initial serum albumin concentration, lower D 4 /D 0 glucose, and lower drained volume. The initial D 4 /P 4 Cr correlated with initial serum albumin ( r = –0.35, p < 0.001). The patients with comorbid diseases had lower initial serum albumin and higher initial D 4 /P 4 Cr. On Kaplan–Meier analysis, 2-year patient survival of group H was significantly lower compared to the other groups combined (57.1% vs 79.5%, p = 0.009). On Cox proportional hazards analysis, age, comorbid diseases, initial serum albumin concentration, and initial D 4 /P 4 Cr were found to be independent risk factors for mortality. However, in the patients without comorbid diseases, patient survival was not different between group H and the other transport groups combined ( p > 0.05), and only age was found to be an independent risk factor for mortality.Conclusion These data suggest that a high peritoneal transport rate at initial PET is associated with high mortality, and that this is in part due to an increased prevalence of comorbid disease in H transporters. These H transporters with comorbid diseases represent a subset of patients with an especially poor prognosis. In patients without comorbid diseases, high transport status or low serum albumin concentration was not an independent risk factor for mortality.