Patients should receive at least three to four hours, three times a w eek, said Dr. Friedrich Port, deputy director of the U.S. Renal Data System, a federally funded registry maintained by the University of Michigan Medical Center. Many dialysis patients and centers do not make certain they are using the right dosage levels. But that shouldn't be the case chronically. There is ineffective treatment for anemia, a common dialysis- related complication. Half of patients have blood tests that show they are at greater risk for developing anemia, Owen said.
Opinions differ about the reuse of dialyzers, a key component of the dialysis machine.
Each person gets his or her own dialyzer, or artificial kidney, which c an be reused on average a dozen times and as many as 50 times, Port said. Later this year, the university hopes to have more answers from a study analyzing data on deaths and complications at virtually every center in the nation that reuses dialyzers, Port said. The data are from the U.S. Renal Data System. Patients can request that they not receive a used dialyzer, he added. The quality of state licensing inspections of dialysis centers varies widely.