Myoglobin elimination in end stage kidney disease patients on renal replacement treatment.

Increased serum myoglobin levels were previously found in patients with chronic renal failure. In this report we have studied the effects of dialysis on myoglobin elimination in patients on CAPD, IPD, cuprophan and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) membrane hemodialysis. Peritoneal dialysis removed a significant amount of myoglobin, CAPD 480 +/- 65 micrograms/day, IPD 270 +/- 25 micrograms/12 h treatment, while with cuprophan dialysis none, and with PAN dialysis only an insignificant amount of myoglobin. The serum myoglobin levels were 250 +/- 18 and 264 +/- 14 micrograms/l on cuprophan and a 3 month dialysis on PAN membrane, respectively. Markedly increased serum levels were also found in CAPD and IPD patients on peritoneal dialysis, 227 +/- 25 and 286 +/- 32 micrograms/l respectively. This study has shown that there is an increased serum myoglobin concentration in end-stage kidney disease patients on dialysis. Although peritoneal membrane is permeable to myoglobin, a relatively small amount is removed, and the serum level in CAPD and IPD patients was not significantly different from the serum myoglobin concentration in hemodialysis patients. Furthermore myoglobin could not be removed by hemodialysis membrane and an analysis of its important extrarenal catabolism level points were analyzed.