Regional cerebral blood flow in dialysis encephalopathy and primary degenerative dementia.

Regional cerebral blood flow (CBF) was measured in patients with dialysis encephalopathy, primary degenerative dementia, dialysis patients with no central nervous system (CNS) complications, and normal controls. Both groups of dialysis patients (with and without CNS complications) demonstrated higher CBF values, and the dementia patients, lower CBF values than the controls. The dialysis patients had lower hematocrit, which correlated inversely with the cerebral blood flow. No such correlations were present in normals and patients with primary degenerative dementia. The dialysis patients and controls obtained similar CBF when the flow values were adjusted for the differences in hematocrit.