Outcome of immediate use of the permanent peritoneal dialysis catheter in children with acute and chronic renal failure.

OBJECTIVE: Peritoneal dialysis remains the only available option for patients which need immediate dialysis and it could be a bridge between end-stage renal failure (ESRD) and transplantation. There is a paucity of published experience of children with immediate use of permanent Tenckhoff Catheter for peritoneal dialysis from developing countries. In this study we report our experience on immediate use of permanent peritoneal access and continued peritoneal dialysis for a prolonged time.

METHODS: Fifty six patients were studied including 30 males and 26 females within the age range of 1 month to 14 years with mean age of 6.5 years in Urmia, Northwest Iran.

FINDINGS: No operative morbidity was seen. During a total of 499.5 continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis months, 16 patients had 28 episodes of peritonitis, which means a overall result of one episode per 17.8 months. There were 3 patients (5.35%) with catheter site leakage, 12 (21.4%) catheter obstructions (which led to omentectomy), 4 (7.2%) exit site infections (2 patients in the early postoperative period and 2 patients in during follow up). Death due to catheter related complications occurred in 1 per 56 patients and due to non-catheter related causes in 10 per 56 patients.

CONCLUSION: Present results indicate that catheter-related complications were not higher than those previously reported and peritoneal dialysis could be initiated immediately after catheter implantation and could be a safe bridge between end-stage renal failure (ESRD) and transplantation.