Adequacy of dialysis in CAPD and cycler PD; the PET is enough.

Assessment of adequacy of dialysis has become a necessary part of all peritoneal dialysis programs; this task is particularly burdensome in home cycler patients. To test the hypothesis that the Peritoneal Equilibration Test (PET) reliably predicts clearance, as measured by classical clearance methodology, both CAPD and cycler patients underwent PET tests and clearance studies. In cycler patients, Dialysis to Plasma Ratios (D/P) for urea nitrogen (UN) and D/P for creatinine as determined by clearance methods correlated extremely well with those obtained by PET test. D/P creatinine also correlated well (clearance versus PET) in CAPD patients; D/P UN approached unity in all CAPD patients with dwell times of 4 hours or longer. In all cases, the PET prescription was highly accurate in predicting 24-hour clearance results. These results are useful in those patients in whom 24-hour home collections are inconvenient or impossible, especially in cycler patients.