Straight versus Coiled Catheters in Peritoneal Dialysis in a Tertiary Care Center in Malaysia

INTRODUCTION: Despite improvements in insertion techniques and catheter designs, catheter malfunction and infection pose a great source of morbidity and limitation to adequate dialysis. The two most used peritoneal dialysis (PD) catheters are the coiled and straight PD catheters. Existing studies show conflicting results. METHODS: This study aims to look at the clinical outcomes and mortality between the two catheter types. This study was designed as an ambidirectional cohort study. A total of 126 patients undergoing PD, with 75 receiving the straight PD catheter and 51 receiving the coiled PD catheter, participated in the study. The primary outcome was catheter survival, and the secondary outcomes included PD failure, catheter-related infections, and all-cause mortality. RESULTS: In the coiled catheter group, 30 (40%) patients had catheter malfunction, whereas the straight catheter group had 15 (29.4%) patients catheter malfunction. However, the survival functions represented by the Kaplan–Meier survival curve did not show any statistical significance (P = 0.659). In the coiled PD catheter group, 13 (17.3%) had PD failure, which was comparable with the straight PD catheter group of nine (17.6%) cases (P = 1.000). The catheter-related infections are similar in both groups. The mortality between two groups was also similar (P = 0.777). CONCLUSIONS: There is no difference in outcomes between the coiled and straight PD catheters.