title: Optimal hemodialysis prescription: do children need more than a urea dialysis dose?
abstract: When prescribing hemodialysis in children, the clinician should first establish an adequate regimen, before seeking to optimize the treatment (Fischbach et al. 2005). A complete dialysis dose should consist of a urea dialysis dose and a determined convective volume. Intensified and more frequent dialysis regimens should not be considered exclusively as rescue therapy. Interestingly, a recent single-center study demonstrated that frequent on-line HDF provides an optimal dialysis prescription, both in terms of blood pressure control (and therefore avoidance of left ventricular hypertrophy), and catch-up growth, that is, no malnutrition or cachexia and less resistance to growth hormone. Nevertheless, this one-center experience would benefit from a prospective randomized study.
authors.affiliation: Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation Children's Unit, University Hospital Hautepierre, Avenue Molière, 67098 Strasbourg, France.
authors.forename: Fischbach
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Michel
authors.forename: Zaloszyc
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ariane
authors.forename: Schaefer
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Betti
authors.forename: Schmitt
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Claus Peter