Patent ID: 7303541

Claim:
A method for testing peritoneal function in order to evaluate the condition of a peritoneal dialysis patient, comprising the steps of: alternately and repeatedly infusing and draining with a first peritoneal dialysis fluid having a first osmotic pressure and a second peritoneal dialysis fluid having an osmotic pressure lower than the first osmotic pressure; analyzing the drain fluid in order to assess both the amount of the peritoneal dialysis fluid that is retained within the abdominal cavity of a patient, and the concentration of monitored solutes in the peritoneal dialysis fluid for each time of the fluid drain; performing a peritoneal equilibrium test, by infusing a dialysis fluid, repeating for predetermined times and at predetermined time intervals draining the dialysis fluid, sampling some of the drained fluid, returning the drained fluid to the patient, and then draining the dialysis fluid; and performing a blood test in order to assess concentrations of the monitored solutes; wherein the fluid infusion and the fluid drain is performed at least three times for each of the dialysis fluids of the respective osmotic pressure, a dwell time from when the dialysis fluid is infused until when the dialysis fluid is drained being set to be different each time when using dialysis fluid having the same osmotic pressure, the repetition of the fluid infusion and the fluid drain is performed in the order such that the dialysis fluid of the higher osmotic pressure is used for the first and the last times, the step of performing the blood test is executed only once; and the peritoneal equilibrium test is performed last of all the steps, and the blood test is performed immediately before the peritoneal equilibrium test, or is performed during the peritoneal equilibrium test.