[Nutritional assessment of patients on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis]

Nutritional status was assessed in 214 CAPD patients from eight centers in Japan. All patients were receiving adequate dialysis, as indicated by KT/Vurea and Karnofsky's activity scale. Subjective global assessment indicated that 25% of 83 female patients and 27% of 131 male patients were, at least, moderately malnourished. Mid-arm muscle circumference was lower in malnourished male patients than in well-nourished patients, however, in female patients none of the anthropometric variables reflected nutritional status. Lower serum albumin level was observed in malnourished male patients, but not in female patients. Daily protein intake, estimated from protein catabolic rate (PCR) was approximately 0.8 g/Kg BW in both males and females. This value is similar to those reported in literatures for CAPD patients. In our well-rehabilitated patients, PCR did not reflect the nutritional status as indicated by subjective global assessment. The data suggest that low protein intake was not always the major cause of malnutrition in these patients and that other factors, such as endocrine disorder, may also have contributed to malnutrition.