[Dialysis therapy in the Czech Republic in 1995]

1. The number of haemodialyzation centres has more than doubled in the course of five years which increased the dialyzation capacity and at present no patient in the Czech Republic should be denied dialyzation treatment on technical or financial grounds. 2. The number of newly enlisted patients "from the street" remains unfavourable, one third, who are not prepared for this financially pretentious treatment and who have many complications. General practitioners and diabetologists should refer in time patients with chronic renal failure (with a creatinine level above 300 mumol/l) to nephrological--predialyzation clinics. 3. The dialyzed population is aging and in the dialyzation programme polymorbid patients, specially diabetics are increasing in numbers. Therefore the mortality has a rising trend and this will persist. The most frequent cause of death are, similarly as in other countries, cardiovascular complications. 4. The development of another method for the treatment of renal failure is promising--peritoneal dialysis which is used in treatment of almost 5% patients. 5. The number of patients treated by HD per 1 million population is relatively high but only because other therapeutic methods applied in renal failure are not used in a sufficient number of patients. This results in a lower rate of patients treated by RRT methods (HD+PD+TPL)/1 million population, as compared with advanced European countries.