Frequent hemodialysis at night may improve some outcomes for end-stage kidney disease patients

According to an article in the September 19 issue of JAMA, those patients receiving hemodialysis at night six times a week for treatment of end-stage kidney disease had improvements on certain clinical outcomes, including reduced need for blood pressure medications and improvement in selected quality of life measures, compared to patients who received conventional hemodialysis three times weekly,

Despite many recent advances in dialysis and medical therapies, patients with end-stage renal (kidney) disease (ESRD) have a high annual rates of death that exceed 15 percent.

According to background information in the article, cardiovascular disease, specifically heart failure or sudden death, is the main responsible for the large majority of deaths.