Routine assessment of kidney urea clearance, dialysis dose and protein catabolic rate in the once-weekly haemodialysis regimen

The dialysis dose (Kt/V) and normalized protein catabolic rate (PCRn) are the most useful indices derived from the urea kinetic model (UKM) in haemodialysis (HD) patients. The kidney urea clearance (Kru) is another important UKM parameter which plays a key role in the prescription of incremental HD. Ideally, the three kinetic parameters should be assessed using the complex software Solute Solver based on the double pool UKM. In the clinical setting, however, the three indices are estimated with simplified formulae. The recently introduced software SPEEDY assembles the aforementioned equations in a plain spreadsheet, to produce quite accurate results of Kru, Kt/V and PCRn. Unfortunately, specific equations to compute Kt/V and PCRn for patients on a once-weekly HD regimen (1HD/wk) were not available at the time SPEEDY was built-up. We devised a new version of SPEEDY (SPEEDY-1) and an even simpler variant (SPEEDY-1S), using two recently published equations for the 1HD/wk schedule . Moreover, we also added a published equation to estimate the equivalent renal clearance (EKR) normalized to urea distribution volume (V) of 35 L (EKR₃₅) from Kru and Kt/V . Aim of the present study was to compare the results obtained using the new methods (SPEEDY-1 and SPEEDY-1S) with those provided by the reference method Solute Solver.

One hundred historical patients being treated with the once-weekly HD regimen were enrolled. A total of 500 HD sessions associated to the availability of monthly UKM studies were analysed in order to obtain Kru, single pool Kt/V (spKt/V), equilibrated Kt/V (eKt/V), V, PCRn and EKR₃₅ values by using Solute Solver, SPEEDY-1 and SPEEDY-1S.

When comparing the paired values of the above UKM parameters, as computed by SPEEDY-1 and Solute Solver, respectively, all differences but one were statistically significant at the one-sample t-test; however, the agreement limits at Bland-Altman analysis showed that all differences were negligible. When comparing the paired values of the above UKM parameters, as computed by SPEEDY-1S and Solute Solver, respectively, all differences were statistically significant; however, the agreement limits showed that the differences were negligible as far as Kru, spKt/V and eKt/V are concerned, though much larger regarding V, PCRn and EKR₃₅.

We implemented SPEEDY with a new version specific for the once-weekly HD regimen, SPEEDY-1. It provides accurate results and is presently the best alternative to Solute Solver. Using SPEEDY-1S led to a larger difference in PCRn and EKR₃₅, which could be acceptable for clinical practice if SPEEDY-1 is not available.