Dialysis and pediatric acute kidney injury: choice of renal support modality

Dialytic intervention for infants and children with acute kidney injury (AKI) can take many forms. Whether patients are treated by intermittent hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis or continuous renal replacement therapy depends on specific patient characteristics. Modality choice is also determined by a variety of factors, including provider preference, available institutional resources, dialytic goals and the specific advantages or disadvantages of each modality. Our approach to AKI has benefited from the derivation and generally accepted defining criteria put forth by the Acute Dialysis Quality Initiative (ADQI) group. These are known as the risk, injury, failure, loss, and end-stage renal disease (RIFLE) criteria. A modified pediatrics RIFLE (pRIFLE) criteria has recently been validated. Common defining criteria will allow comparative investigation into therapeutic benefits of different dialytic interventions. While this is an extremely important development in our approach to AKI, several fundamental questions remain. Of these, arguably, the most important are “When and what type of dialytic modality should be used in the treatment of pediatric AKI?” This review will provide an overview of the limited data with the aim of providing objective guidelines regarding modality choice for pediatric AKI. Comparisons in terms of cost, availability, safety and target group will be reviewed.