Home Dialysis News

The North American Research Consortium (NARC), an arm of the North American chapter of the International Society of Peritoneal Dialysis, is reviewing results from a 29-question survey about catheter insertion practices in the U.S. and Canada.

NEW ORLEANS – When big events occur in home dialysis, you need to celebrate—particularly in the United States, where home dialysis represents less than 12% of the total dialysis patient population. The Annual Dialysis Conference, held here this past week, had some significant announcements for those interested in dialyzing at home.

Reliant Renal Care Lapeer Home Choice LLC will begin offering on-site dialysis services to residents in NexCare nursing centers. The new program provides residents the choice to receive their treatment as a home patient. NexCare runs nursing and rehabilitation centers in Michigan. RRC will provide all the equipment, supplies, medications and dialysis-trained staff.

The United States Food and Drug Administration has approved Baxter International Inc.'s Phoxillum Renal Replacement Solutions as replacement solutions in continuous renal replacement therapy. Phoxillum can be used to correct electrolyte and acid-base imbalances, and in cases of drug poisoning when CRRT is used to remove dialyzable substances. The FDA has granted Phoxillum orphan drug designation for use in CRRT.

This blog post originally appeared at Home Dialysis Central's website on Jan. 1. Find more posts from this blog, KidneyViews, at www.homedialysis.org/news-and-research/blog.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared NxStage Medical Inc.'s System One to perform home nocturnal hemodialysis. NxStage's System One is the only hemodialysis machine cleared by the FDA for this indication.

I will never forget the day. I had taken a run in the morning and by the afternoon; I was in the hospital with blood cancer and end-stage renal disease. That day, my life changed. The cancer affected my body’s ability to produce red blood cells, and the ones it did produce were distorted.

This blog post originally appeared at Home Dialysis Central's website on Nov. 20. Find more posts from this blog, KidneyViews, at www.homedialysis.org/news-and-research/blog.

On Oct. 31, CMS issued the final rule that updates the payment policies and payment rates for the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for 2015. The final rule was published in the Federal Register Nov. 13.

PHILADELPHIA – Among 200 patients on dialysis, extending weekly dialysis hours for 12 months did not improve quality of life, but was linked with improvements in some laboratory measures, such as potassium and phosphate blood levels, and a reduced need for blood pressure medications.