Nefrología : publicación oficial de la Sociedad Española Nefrologia
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Complications arising from vascular access are major causes of morbidity in patients on renal replacement therapy. They contribute to frustration of health care providers and to high medical cost. To prevent failures in the future it will be helpful to identify the factors that are related to vascular access, malfunction. ⋯ Patients who start HD with a catheter, as well as those with initial vascular access failure, have a higher rate of access failure in the subsequent course on renal replacement therapy. In conclusion, the radiocephalic and the brachiocephalic a-v fistula are the two types of vascular access with the longest duration of function, although a high rate of initial failure is seen with the radiocephalic a-v fistula. Age, female gender, presence of diabetic nephropathy, start of dialysis with a catheter, and failure to wait for initial maturation of vascular access are risk factors, and account for the majority of vascular access failure during renal replacement therapy.
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Comparative Study
[Costs of chronic dialysis in a public hospital: myths and realities].
In this study regular dialysis treatment costs during 1998 and 1999 in a public hospital, which is responsible for a population of 178,000, has been analysed. Hemodialysis (HD) and peritoneal dialysis (PD) costs have been differentiated and compared with those of external providers. The best technical and productive efficiency of both treatments have been estimated by analyzing the "treatment cost/human resources of the community utilized" relationship. ⋯ If we take into account our population characteristics and consider a patient distribution of 70% on HD and 30% on PD, the best productive efficiency would be reached with 56 patients on HD (17,916 euros per patient per year) and 24 patients on PD (21,813 euros per patient per year). HD confers the greatest economic and social benefits on the population supplied by the hospital since it provides the community with more jobs than PD in relation to treatment costs while the two yield the same clinical results. In conclusion, HD in a public hospital, at least in our environment, may be efficient and competitive with HD from external providers and it may be more efficient and provide a bigger economic and social profit for the population serviced by the hospital than PD, at least while the current supply systems for this treatment in our country are maintained.
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Case Reports
[Distal renal tubular acidosis with rhabdomyolysis as the presenting form in 4 pregnant women].
We describe four pregnant patients with distal renal tubular acidosis (type I) (DRTA) whose initial presentation was rhabdomyolysis (RML) secondary to severe hypokalemia. We draw attention to the unusual presentation of DRTA during pregnancy, the low frequency of DRTA in adult patients and RML as initial manifestation. In one case the DRTA was secondary to Sjögren Syndrome and the etiology was unknown in the rest of the cases. We discuss the potential pathogenic mechanisms to explain hypokalemic RML and the various causes of DRTA in adult patients.