Quality of life scores should be compared before and after patients have undergone dialysis.

To the Editor: We intentionally read the article “Quality of life (QoL) in hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis patients in Saudi” written by Wakeel et al with great interest.1 They concluded that the quality of life (QoL) was better among peritoneal dialysis (PD) than hemodialysis (HD) patients in all domains except physical domain. PD patients spent more quality time and were more satisfied than HD patients.1

In the last years, advances in dialysis procedures and new guidelines to treat the chronic renal failure patients have improved their treatment and prolonged their lives. At the same time, the concept of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) strengthened as a new goal to be achieved. The current dialysis guidelines enforce treatments to achieve similar outcomes in the long run, independently of the choice of dialysis treatment.2 Manns et al. in their study concluded that there was no significant difference in HRQoL for prevalent end-stage renal disease patients treated with HD or PD.3 In another study, Wu et al. concluded that that PD did not seem to produce a better QoL than HD for patients who imitated renal replacement therapy. 4 Ginieri-Coccossis. et al. in their study concluded that the results provided evidence that patients in HD treatment modality, particularly those with many years of treatment, experienced a more compromised QoL in comparison to PD patients.5 The results may change due to sociodemographic characteristics of patients. We think that the comparison of the two groups could be more meaningful if the QoL is measured before and after patients are undergone dialysis. Another point of discussion could be that the variations in study results may vary upon longer follow-up durations of these patients.