Complications of continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis: one surgeon's experience with 668 patient-month follow-up

The technique of continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) catheterization is critical to patient success. To clarify how important a surgeon's experience to CAPD is, the experience exclusively from a single surgeon was presented and compared with those from a group of surgeons. The roles of intraoperative fluoroscopy and laparoscopy in CAPD catheterization and the rescue of tube migration in the authors' experience would also be introduced.

Fifty-five patients followed for a total of 668 patient-months between July 1990 and July 1993 were included for analysis. All of the catheterization procedures were done by one surgeon.

The overall complication rate was 56%. Twenty-two percent of the patients had peritonitis, with an incidence of 0.56/patient-year, and 25% of the patients had exit-site infection, with an incidence of 0.36/patient-year. Tube migration occurred in two patients (4%). There was no dialysate leakage or incisional hernia. These incidences were much lower than previous reports by groups of surgeons. Laparoscopy successfully rescued a migrated tube. The cumulative 1-year, 2-year and 3-year catheter survival rates were 81%, 75% and 63% respectively. The previous abdominal operation, catheter type and catheterization site were not the prognostic factors of catheter survival.

Based on this favorable outcomes, an experienced CAPD-surgeon may be one of the factors in minimizing the complications and improving the catheter survival in CAPD. Intraoperative fluoroscopy for every catheterization procedure and laparoscopy for the migrated or dysfunctional tube are highly recommended.