[The equivalent renal urea clearance. Its relationship with mortality in chronic hemodialysed patients]

The Equivalent Renal Urea Clearance (EKR) integrates the residual renal function (KR) and the dialysis dose (Kt/V). The present study was performed with these objectives: to calculate EKR in our hemodialysis (HD) patients during a three year follow up, to define its relationship with mortality and to compare its importance as a risk factor among others and to calculate actuarial survival. We analyzed 267 chronic HD patients. We measured Kt/V single pool, TACu, albumin, creatinine, hemoglobin and HD time and we calculated KR, EKR, KRc and EKRc (the last two corrected for V* 401--to compare clearances of different size patients). The EKRc median was 14.20 ml/min and it was taken as cut off point. The mortality OR was 2.17. The multivariated analysis showed, as independent mortality predictors, the albumin (the most significant), the EKRc and the HD time. The actuarial survival of EKRc, Kt/V and albumin showed marked similarity of their curves. The significant differences between the predictor curves began on the 2nd year of HD, for albumin they began in levels lesser than 3.5 g/dl and higher than 3.4 g/dl. Therefore, we consider that the best advantage of EKRc, compared to other parameters derived from the urea kinetics model, was the possibility to valuate the weekly HD adequation (once, twice or three times a week) and this, depending on the KR and the Kt/V of each HD treatment. Besides, the EKRc could also be used as adequacy criterion in CAPD considering daily Kt/V so that we could employ EKRc as adequacy parameter for both replacement therapies.