[Acute renal failure. Extracorporeal therapy]

Acute renal failure is increasingly found in critically ill patients as part of the multiple organ dysfunction syndrome. Intermittent hemodialysis and continuous renal replacement therapy are standard extracorporeal replacement therapies. Continuous therapies are thought to be especially useful in cardiovascularly instable patients in the intensive care unit. Recently, slow, extended daily dialysis was introduced as a hybrid method, combining the advantages of intermittent and continuous renal replacement therapy. While controlled studies have uniformly shown that a high dose of such replacement therapy increases survival, studies have failed to support a definitive advantage for any method in terms of patient survival. Therefore, the choice of renal replacement therapy should be based on personal experience, the available resources/infrastructure as well as the needs of the individual patient.