Hemodialysis patients characteristically suffer from a range of unpleasant symptoms. Uremic pruritus effects close to half of the chronic kidney disease population, reducing quality of life and associated with increased mortality. Its pathophysiology though is poorly understood; currently deployed therapeutic approaches are ineffective. Excessive levels of skin and soft tissue sodium accumulate in dialysis patients, producing a range of biological consequences, including inflammation. We report an index case of a hemodialysis patient with debilitating pruritus and extreme levels of tissue sodium, measured with Sodium-23 magnetic resonance imaging. Both the tissue sodium loading and pruritus responded fully to initiation of expanded hemodialysis therapy with a recently introduced medium cutoff dialysis membrane-based dialyzer.

Penny JD, Salerno FR, Akbari A, McIntyre CW

Hemodialysis International

Published 2020

Research Project: NaMRI