[Choosing the dialysis method for kidney transplant patients with advanced kidney disease]

The choice of the most of dialysis modality after renal graft loss is an unanswered question. Most patients start hemodialysis (HD) in this situation, because of several reasons: 1. In most dialysis programs HD predominates clearly over Peritoneal Dialysis (PD). 2. The star of dialysis in emergency situations makes the physician use HD 3. The fear of infections in case of maintenance of immunosupression to avoid immune response and to keep residual renal function in case of PD. A lot of patients could undergo PD in order to maintain the previous style of life, as an alternative in case of absence of vascular access and to avoid vascular accesses in children. Mortality seems to be greater in patients with graft loss than in those who start dialysis for the first time, although the comparison between both groups is methodologically difficult. However, there is no difference in mortality between patients who start HD and those who start PD. Studies comparing the rate of peritonitis in PD patients in both groups find controversial results. The analysis of the few, retrospective and biased studies which look for differences in patient survival in HD and DP suggests that prognosis of both groups is similar. The choice of dialysis modality must be similar to those patients which begin dialysis for the first time.