title: Double target comparison of blood-side methods for measuring the hemodialysis dose.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Despite the fact that urea kinetic modelling has been successfully applied to quantify the hemodialysis since the beginning of the 1980s, there is not a consensus yet concerning which is the most proper dialysis dose index and the method for calculating it. In this work, we propose that a combined measurement of the dialysis dose from two complementary perspectives of the removal process should provide a more complete description of dialysis than a measurement alone. This hypothesis is reviewed and the measuring methods are compared.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional randomized clinical study over 98 stable ESRD patients submitted to thrice-weekly hemodialysis was carried out with the aim of comparing 16 blood-side methods for measuring the hemodialysis dose from patient and dialyzer perspectives. The availability of urea rebound measurements and computational resources have been taken into account.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The outcomes point to four novel blood-side methods as the most accurate for measuring the effective dialysis system Kt/V (mKt/V) in clinical conditions. Their limits of agreement (mean +/- 2.SD) range from 1.93 +/- 2.09% for a non-iterative method without the urea rebound measurement (BUN3) to -0.08 +/- 0.58% for an iterative method with BUN3. The best non-iterative blood-side method for measuring the equilibrated Kt/V (eKt/V) is the second generation formula of Daugirdas (-2.42 +/- 1.05%) when BUN3 is available and the rate equation of Daugirdas and Schneditz (-1.74 +/- 7.91%) when BUN3 is not available. The difference mKt/V-eKt/V is significant and positive, and increases with the dialysis dose in a personalized manner.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We have confirmed the arguments that support the hypothesis of the study. The best blood-side methods for the combined measurement of dialysis dose as a function of the available resources have been determined.
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Engineering Group, University of Seville, Seville, Spain. mpradovelasco@ieee.org
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Prado
authors.forename: Laura M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Roa
authors.forename: Alfonso
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Palma
authors.forename: José A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Milán
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015415:Biomarkers; D001806:Blood Urea Nitrogen; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007676:Kidney Failure, Chronic / Q000097:blood* / Q000628:therapy*; D007700:Kinetics; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008954:Models, Biological; D012016:Reference Values; D006435:Renal Dialysis / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*; D014508:Urea / Q000097:blood
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D014508:Urea