Friday 14 February 2020

American Kidney Fund Helping People

There were a lot of people getting transplants in America in 2019. Over 24,000 in fact. And not everyone has insurance or funds to cover a transplant. But then there's the American Kidney Fund...

According to this article from Yahoo! the AKF gave grants to 1,400 people to receive kidney transplants and post-transplant care. More than 60% of the people receiving these grants were from racial and ethnic minority groups, who in general have fewer transplants than white Americans. Yet this group are more likely to need a transplant as more have kidney failure! So without these grants, many people would become financially broken and never receive a transplant.

AKF is also fully supporting the objective of finding living kidney donors.

You can find out more about the American Kidney Fund at their website.

Friday 7 February 2020

Similar Survival Rates Found for Different Dialysis Modes

Is one form of dialysis better than another? Should you always opt for one particular type of dialysis?
This is something every patient wonders about when told they will have to have dialysis. The trouble is when you are first told you need dialysis, you probably have not considered the options until that very moment. And you wonder if you might make the wrong choice.

A recent bit of research looked at 17 other studies of the possible problem and by pooling all the results - 113,578 patients' results over a 21 year period - came to the conclusion that there is no significant difference in the mortality rate between peritoneal dialysis (PD) and in-centre hemodialysis (HD). This could affect the initial counselling of new patients in the run-up to getting dialysis. The research showed that life expectancy was virtually the same for both the therapies.

As PD is a more cost-effective option and helps preserve a normal lifestyle, they concluded that PD should be encouraged. Many people worry that "home treatment" via PD might be riskier than HD, but this appears not to be the case.