Clinical study on effect of TCM treatment in decreasing frequency of peritoneal dialysis

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the effect of combined therapy of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatment and peritoneal dialysis (PD) in improving renal function and reducing the frequency of PD. Methods: Three groups of patients were treated with regular PD, less frequency PD (LFPD) and LFPD plus TCM (LFPD +TCM) respectively, and the patients’ blood urea nitrogen (BUN), Creatinine (Cr), hemoglobin (Hb) and arterial blood pressure (BP) were observed. Results: After 3 months of PD+TCM, the serum BUN, Cr and mean BP of the group lowered and the hemoglobin elevated as compared with those of patients after 1 month of PD (P < 0.01). The difference of the above-mentioned criteria between PD+TCM group and LFPD group was significant too, though there was no obvious difference in comparison of the PD+TCM group with regular PD group (P>0.05). The effective rate and the edema cure rate of PD+TCM group were superior to the LFPD group, but was not evidently different as compared with the regular PD group. Conclusion: PD combined with TCM treatment might reduce the frequency of PD for the uremic patients who had to undergo long-term PD therapy.