Incremental Haemodialysis in Incident Patients

Background: Incremental hemodialysis (HD) is a starting regime for renal replacement therapy (RRT) adapted to each patient's necessities. It is mainly conditioned by the residual renal function (RRF). The frequency of sessions with which patients start HD -one or two sessions per week-, is lower than that for conventional HD three times per week. Such frequency is increased (from one to two sessions, and from two to three sessions) as the RRF declines. Methods/Design: IHDIP is a multicenter randomized experimental open trial. It is randomized in a 1:1 ratio and controlled through usual clinical practice, with a low intervention level and non-commercial. It includes 152 patients older than 18 years with chronic renal disease stage 5 and start HD as RRT, with a RRF of ≥ 4ml/min/1.73m2, measured by renal clearance of urea (KrU). The intervention group includes 76 patients who will start with one session of HD per week (incremental HD). The control group includes 76 patients who will start with three sessions per week (conventional HD). The primary purpose is assessing the survival rate, while the secondary purposes are the morbidity rate (hospital admissions), the clinical parameters, the quality of life and the efficiency. Discussion: This study will enable us to know with the highest level of scientific evidence, the number of sessions a patient should receive when starting the HD treatment, depending on his/her RRF.