Patients submitted to hemodialysis are at a high risk for healthcare-associated infections (HAI). Presently there are scarce data to allow benchmarking of HAI rates in developing countries. Also, most studies focus only on bloodstream infections (BSI) or local access infections (LAI). Our study aimed to provide a wide overview of HAI epidemiology in a hemodialysis unit in southeastern Brazil. W...

The Fistula First Initiative has strongly encouraged nephrologists, vascular access surgeons, and dialysis units in the United States to make valiant efforts to increase fistula use in the hemodialysis population. Unfortunately, the rigid "fistula first" recommendations are not based on solid, current, evidence-based data and may be harmful to some hemodialysis patients by subjecting them to pr...

OBJECTIVE To assess the bacteriological quality of dialysis fluid in 2 hemodialysis units in Alexandria, Egypt. METHODS A total of 321 samples of hemodialysis fluids, 213 from unit A (a governmental unit), 108 from unit B (a private unit), both under the supervision of ministry of health, were collected from the water treatment system (WTS), treated water, concentrates, and final dialysate fr...

We investigated the unrecognized patient-to-patient transmission of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in hemodialysis units by performing phylogenetic and serological analyses of hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) of HCV. Of the 62 patients in one center, 11 were positive for HCV RNA. A total of 24 HVR1 sequences, including the minor population of sequences of HCV isolates, from each patient were closely rela...

The prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) continues to increase. Patients with stage 1 to 5 CKD and those undergoing dialysis are at extremely high risk for drug therapy problems (DTPs). In controlled trials involving general patient populations, clinical pharmacist interventions have reduced hospital admissions, length of hospital stay, readmissions, and emergency department visits. The a...

OBJECTIVE We sought to measure the prevalence of inadequate glycemic control in prevalent hemodialysis patients with diabetes and to examine independent predictors of inadequate glycemic control in these patients. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS This is a cross-sectional study of prevalent hemodialysis patients with diabetes in southeastern Ontario (n = 100). Data were collected by chart review a...