Urgent-start Peritoneal Dialysis in ESRD Patients：A Multi-center Study

The prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is on the rise worldwide. Moreover, many patients who progress to ESRD, even with regular nephrology follow-up, do not have a distinct plan at the time of initiating dialysis therapy, resulting in an urgent need for dialysis. Urgent-start dialysis refers to urgent initiation of dialysis for ESRD patients with no pre-established functional vascular access or peritoneal dialysis (PD) catheter. Hemodialysis (HD) is preferred in most centers with a high rate of central venous catheter (CVC) use at the time of initiating dialysis among HD patients. There is a significantly increased risk of infectious complications, thrombosis, and other complications associated with CVC use which negatively affects patient prognosis. Within the last decade, urgent-start PD has gained considerable interest amongst nephrologists. Several publications have provided assurances that urgent-start PD is indeed feasible and can serve patients well; however, most of the studies have small sample sizes, and the impact of the urgent-start dialysis modality on outcome, especially on short-term complications, has not been directly evaluated. Therefore, we conducted this multicenter, prospective, randomized clinical trial to compare the dialysis-related complications and survival rate directly between urgent-start PD and HD groups with a large sample to determine the feasibility and safety of urgent-start PD as an alternate initial modality of dialysis for patients who require urgent initiation of dialysis therapy.