Is aluminum toxicity responsible for uremic pruritus in chronic hemodialysis patients?

Pruritus is a common symptom among patients undergoing long-term hemodialysis. However, its etiology remains unclear. In an attempt to clarify its cause we tried to correlate pruritus and its intensity with several serological variables in 94 hemodialysis patients. Our results show that higher serum aluminum concentrations are found in dialysis patients with pruritus (p = 0.008) and that the intensity of pruritus is also significantly related to the aluminum concentration (p = 0.007). The intensity of pruritus was also correlated with the calcium-phosphate product (p = 0.03). Our findings suggest that prolonged exposure to aluminum in patients with chronic renal failure might be involved in the pathogenesis of uremic pruritus and elevated calcium-phosphate product seems to be an additional factor predisposing to pruritus.