Problems of continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis in infants

Six years' experience with continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis and chronic hemodialysis in Saudi children

Eighty children with End Stage Disease (ESRD) were treated in our unit over a six year period. Forty-eight were treated with CAPD (mean age = 5.8 years) and thirty-two with HD (mean age = 8.2 years). The average duration of treatment was 14.8 months in the CAPD group and 14.2 months in the HD group. There were 22 failures of peritoneal catheter in the CAPD group out of 70 catheters compared to 19 failures of vascular access devices out of 45 in the HD group. Peritoneal catheter failure was due to resistance or recurrent peritonitis in 10 (45.4%) and obstruction in nine (41%), whereas vascular access devices failure was due to thrombosis in six (31.5%) and infection in five (26.3%). Fifteen (31.3%) of the CAPD patients died and eight (16.7%) transferred to HD, whereas five (15.6%) HD patients died and four (12.5%) transferred to CAPD. The three year actuarial rates for CAPD were 81% at one year, 55% at two years and 42% at three years, while for HD was 94%, 85% and 64%, respectively. In this unique experience at the Kingdom so far, we found that a fully integrated service of dialysis including both CAPD and HD are essential. Such a system allows the optimal mode of treatments to be chosen for a child at any time and allows the child to move freely from one treatment to another when needed.