Incremental Hemodialysis – A European Perspective

Most patients initiating hemodialysis have residual renal function (RRF). Whereas RRF is monitored prior to commencing hemodialysis, once dialysis is started most centres simply rely on dialyzer urea clearance to determine adequate uremic toxin clearance and disregard the effect of RRF. However sustaining RRF is important for the dialysis patient, as RRF reduces inter-dialytic weight gains, increases middle molecule and protein bound toxin clearances and is associated with better quality of life assessments. Paradoxically, more frequent dialysis and longer dialysis sessions appear to be associated with more rapid loss of RRF. As such, starting patients with less frequent or shorter dialysis sessions, depending upon individual patient comorbidity, may lead to better preservation of RRF. However to prevent inadequate uremic toxin clearance or volume overload, RRF needs to be regularly monitored. Unfortunately, the 24-hour urine collection for urea and creatinine clearance remains the mainstay for RRF assessment. This measurement chiefly represents glomerular clearance rather than tubular function, but the latter may be also important for the dialysis patients. Incremental dialysis with less initial dialysis treatment may lower costs and will allow others to dialyze more frequently. The key to start a successful incremental hemodialysis approach is the regular monitoring of the patient, so that as RRF is lost an appropriate decision can be made regarding increasing dialysis session duration and frequency on an individual patient basis or consider switching modalities to hemodiafiltration.