Hemodialysis or Peritoneal Dialysis, Which Is Better for Patients with Delayed Graft Function?

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Hemodialysis (HD) or peritoneal dialysis (PD) is an important renal replacement method in patients with delayed graft function (DGF) after kidney transplantation; however, it is not clear which dialysis modality is superior. This study determined the impact of different dialysis modalities on patients with DGF.

METHODS: It was a single-center, retrospective and descriptive study. We performed 673 kidney transplants from donors after cardiac death (DCD) between January 2010 and December 2016 at our center and 138 (20.5%) recipients developed DGF after transplantation. We classified the recipients into two groups according to post-transplant dialysis: DGF-HD (n=96) and DGF-PD (n=42). We analyzed the outcomes of the different dialysis modalities 30 days and 1 year post-transplantation.

RESULTS: There were no differences in baseline factors between patients with post-transplant HD (n = 96) or PD (n = 42). There were 10 patients with conversion from PD to HD during DGF. The DGF-PD patients had a higher rate of treatment failure than the DGF-HD patients (23.8% vs. 0%, p < 0.001), peritonitis (7.1% vs. 0%, p = 0.027), and longer duration of dialysis dependence (10.5 vs. 9 days, p = 0.003). There was no statistically significant difference between both groups with respect to acute rejection, hemorrhage, and patient and graft survival at 1 year.

CONCLUSION: In renal transplant recipients with DGF, post-transplant PD led to increased treatment failure. PD did not result in rapid recovery of transplanted renal function, and had a high probability of peritonitis.