Is regular in-person recall superior to non-regular in-person recall in clinical outcomes among new patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the different impacts on clinical outcomes between regular recall and non-regular recall among incident peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. METHODS: A two-center cohort of 216 new PD patients from 1January 2013, to 31 December 2014, was studied. Informative clinical data were collected from baseline until two years after PD initiation, including demographics, laboratory and PD-related parameters, PD-related peritonitis rates, and frequency of hospitalization. Regular in-person recall (RPR) was defined as having a one-month interval and non-regular in-person recall (NRPR) as an interval ranging from more than one month to less than three months. RESULTS: Percentage of patients with peritonitis was significantly higher among patients in the NRPR group than among those in the RPR group (27.7% vs. 16.5%, p = .049). PD-related peritonitis rate was higher in the NRPR vs. RPR cohorts (0.16 vs. 0.09 person/year, p = .019). PD-related hospitalization frequency was also higher in the NRPR cohort (0.8 ± 1.0 vs. 0.5 ± 0.9, p = .039) over two years. Kt/V values in the NRPR cohort gradually decreased over two years and were at lower levels than in the RPR cohort. CONCLUSIONS: New PD patients with NRPR showed higher rates of PD-related peritonitis and hospitalization frequency than patients with RPR.