Influence of dialysis therapies in the development of cardiac disease in CKD

It is well recognised that dialysis patients suffer excess morbidity and mortality and that this is mainly due to cardiac failure and sudden cardiac death rather than conventional risk factors. Dialysis patients are primed by a number of structural, functional and microcirculatory abnormalities to experience demand myocardial ischaemia. We have shown that haemodialysis induces repetitive myocardial ischaemia in the majority of patients. In this way, haemodialysis itself may contribute to the development of heart failure and the risk of sudden death. There is recent appreciation that peritoneal dialysis is also capable of exerting short-term effects on cardiovascular performance through mechanisms both mutual and exclusive to haemodialysis. The aim of this paper is to give an appreciation of the possibility that modification of the dialysis procedure is capable of improving treatment tolerability and has the potential to reduce the excessive rates of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. © 2010 European Dialysis and Transplant Nurses Association.