Continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis: experience with 22 unselected patients with renal failure.

The present study describes our experience with CAPD in an unselected group of patients presenting with endstage renal failure. Twenty-three consecutive patients were offered CAPD, in-center, and home hemodialysis. Twenty-two patients selected CAPD, including 14 patients more than 60 years of age, four patients with diabetes, and one with multiple myeloma. CAPD training was performed in an out-of-hospital office facility. One patient returned to hemodialysis following the development of resistant Pseudomonas peritonitis, two patients died of a myocardial infarction, and one patient died with a GI bleed. The other 18 patients are doing well. Assessment of 17 patients maintained on therapy for four months or more revealed that the patients are less depressed, less organic, and have fewer physical symptoms than previously reported for a comparable group of patients maintained on hemodialysis for a similar period of time. In conclusion, CAPD can be successfully employed, at least for the initial months of therapy, to treat the vast majority of patients with endstage renal disease. CAPD training and follow-up care can be provided in an out-of-hospital office facility.