The effect of urgent-start peritoneal dialysis and urgent-start hemodialysis on clinical outcomes in patients with chronic kidney disease: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis

Recently, urgent-start peritoneal dialysis (PD) has been suggested in place of urgent-start hemodialysis (HD) in cases of chronic kidney disease (CKD). However, the comparative effectiveness of these methods is still unclear. This study compared the outcomes of urgent-start PD and urgent-start HD in CKD patients.

Electronic searches were conducted in PubMed, EMbase, Google Scholar databases, and Cochrane Library, up to 30th July 2023 for studies reporting data on all-cause mortality. Secondary outcomes included dialysis-related infectious and mechanical complications. Risk ratios (RRs) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated.

Nine eligible studies involving 941 PD and 779 HD patients were analyzed. Pooled analysis demonstrated elevated risk of all-cause mortality (RR: 1.06, 95% CI: 1.02 to 1.09), dialysis-related infectious complications (RR: 1.05, 95% CI: 1.02 to 1.07), and mechanical complications (RR: 1.08, 95% CI: 1.04 to 1.13) in patients undergoing urgent-start HD than in patients on urgent-start PD.

Our findings indicate that CKD patients that received urgent-start HD are at increased risk of all-cause mortality and infectious, and mechanical complications that are associated with the dialysis than patients that received urgent-start PD. These findings have to be considered when making treatment decisions for patients with acute kidney injury. Better understanding of the mechanism of these differences may help to create guidelines for more informed clinical practices.