Urea kinetics has limited relevance in assessing adequacy of dialysis in CAPD
Blake, P.G.; Balaskas, E.; Blake, R.; Oreopoulos, D.G.
Advances in Peritoneal Dialysis. Conference on Peritoneal Dialysis 8: 65-70
1992
ISSN/ISBN: 1197-8554 PMID: 1361855 Document Number: 400420
The application of urea kinetics to CAPD is controversial. Additional data is presented from our recent study on this topic. Different methods of calculating KT/V and normalized protein catabolic rate (PCRN) are compared and KT/V is shown to be on average 6.5% higher when V is calculated by Watson's formulae instead of by body weight alone. This discrepancy increases with time. It is also shown that standard methods may overestimate KT and underestimate PCRN. KT/V and PCRN by these different methods do not correlate with clinical outcomes. However, if V is calculated by Watson's formulae, there is a significant excess of deaths when KT/V is under 0.5 (weekly KT/V under 1.5). Survival curves show that neither initial KT/V nor PCRN predict failure on CAPD.