Dialysis takes hours of kidney disease patients' time several days a week, so why not do it at night while sleeping?
Overnight dialysis is more convenient for some patients and offers significant benefits over shorter daytime treatments, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN).
The findings indicate that overnight dialysis is a viable alternative for patients with irreversible kidney disease, particularly in dialysis clinics where there are constraints on time and resources.
Dialysis removes waste products such as phosphate and urea from the blood, usually in three to five hours of treatments three days a week. Unfortunately, even this difficult schedule may not be frequent enough to maintain many patients' health. Some clinics offer an alternative: three weekly overnight dialysis sessions lasting six hours or more.