Night home hemodialysis shown to be as good as transplant in treating kidn...( For the first time it has been shown...),Health

For the first time, it has been shown that patients who receive night home hemodialysis live just as long as those who receive kidney transplants from deceased donors.

In a study entitled, "Survival among nocturnal home hemodialysis patients compared to kidney transplant recipients," published in the international September issue of Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, a total of 1,239 patients were followed for up to 12 years. Night home hemodialysis patients were compared to patients who received either a deceased donor kidney transplant or a living donor kidney transplant. The study found that the survival between night home dialysis patients and those who received kidney transplants from deceased donors was comparable, while the survival of the patients who received a transplant from a living kidney donor was better than both the other groups.

These results suggest that night home hemodialysis, an intensive dialysis of six to eight hour sessions for up to seven times a week, may be a "bridge to transplant" or a "suitable alternative" to transplant should a patient be too high risk for a transplant or not be able to get a living or deceased donor as the organ shortage continues. Night home hemodialysis patients were from the Toronto General and Humber River Regional Hospitals, both hospitals together representing the largest and longest established group of such patients world-wide.

"This study allows me to actually answer what my patients have been asking me for over a decade: 'What does night home hemodialysis mean for my life span?' I can now tell them that this specific dialysis option is as good as getting a transplant from a deceased donor," says Dr. Christopher Chan, Medical Director of Home Hemodialysis at Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network, the R. Fraser Elliott Chair in Home Dialysis and Associate Professor, University of Toronto.

Until this study, there has been no long-term data on
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