A positive effect of AII inhibitors on peritoneal membrane function in long-term PD patients

BACKGROUND: Experimental studies showed that inhibition of AII effects attenuates the development of peritoneal membrane fibrosis and neoangiogenesis. The latter leads to an increase of peritoneal solute transport and ultrafiltration failure. The results of a single-centre study showed that use of ACEI/ARB can prevent the increase of small solute transport in long-term PD patients. Our aim was to investigate whether these results would also be present in a larger population and influence patient and technique survival in long-term PD. METHODS: We analysed data from 217 long-term CAPD patients, participating in the Netherlands Cooperative Study on Adequacy of Dialysis (NECOSAD). Included patients underwent CAPD therapy for at least 2 years; 120 of them were treated with the ACE/AII inhibitors-ACEI/ARB group. The control group consisted of 87 patients who received none of the above drugs and 10 patients who had them for <25% of their time on PD. RESULTS: A significant difference in the time course of peritoneal transport was found between the two groups. The value of 24-h D/P creatinine was associated with the PD duration (P = 0.01) and its time course was influenced by use of ACEI/ARB (P = 0.05). We found no effect of ACEI/ARB on patient survival, but some benefit was found for the technique survival: in a multivariate model the hazard ratio for the group with the longest use of ACEI/ARB was 0.5 (CI 0.22-1.4), P = 0.19. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that AII inhibition prevents the increase in small solute transport in long-term PD. These drugs may also have some positive influence on PD technique survival.