Dialysis
Ranked among the top kidney disease programs, Duke Nephrology offers the latest inpatient and outpatient dialysis options, including peritoneal, nocturnal and home hemodialysis programs. For inpatients too ill to be treated with hemodialysis, our skilled physicians provide continuous renal replacement, a therapy that replaces the work of failing kidneys by gradually removing excess fluid from the blood.
Top dialysis care and research
A leader in dialysis care and research since 1957, researchers and surgeons at our center recently developed a bioengineered blood vessel that promotes safer blood flow during dialysis by reducing infection and clotting risks. This experimental treatment could potentially help people with end-stage kidney disease avoid hospitalizations and surgeries.
Every hemodialysis patient benefits from the commitment of our experienced surgeons to use the latest technologies, including your own tissue, to improve dialysis results.
Choose Duke for your dialysis care because we offer:
- Reputation. Our nephrology program is one of the best in the country, consistently ranked among the top kidney disease programs by U.S. News & World Report.
- Optimal care. We use leading-edge techniques to make dialysis--whether performed in the hospital, in our outpatient clinics, or in the comfort of your own home--easier and more efficient. Treatments are based on the Dialysis Outcomes Quality Initiative (DOQI) guidelines.
- Proactive patient safety. Effective hemodialysis requires regular access to your circulatory system. This essential process carries a normal risk of infection or blood vessel damage, but our surgeons aggressively limit those risks by using the best and latest technologies for every procedure.
- Team approach. Our nephrologists, vascular surgeons, interventionists (doctors specializing in minimally-invasive procedures), dialysis nurses, and sonographers (specialists in ultrasound imaging), work together to ensure you get the highest quality of personalized care.
- Simpler, safer dialysis. Our vascular surgeons use advanced procedures to access blood vessel for dialysis treatment, typically using your tissue's natural defenses to prevent infection. Our surgeons are experts in identifying the safest locations to create surgical ports to access your blood vessels. Better access to your blood vessels helps make dialysis faster and more efficient.
- Eight convenient locations. Our nephrology physicians provide care at eight outpatient dialysis centers that serve hundreds of patients with kidney failure and end-stage renal disease in Durham and surrounding counties.
DIALYSIS
Treatments
-
A machine and special filter remove wastes and excess fluid from your blood. This treatment is available for both inpatients at our hospitals and outpatients at our clinics. We have late afternoon and nocturnal dialysis (in the clinic while you sleep), as well as an active home hemodialysis program.
-
A dialysis solution is flushed into your abdominal cavity, then drained to remove wastes and fluid. You can give yourself this treatment at home, at work, or while traveling. We also offer peritoneal dialysis for inpatients at our medical center.
-
For critically ill inpatients who are unable to tolerate the rapid fluid and electrolyte shifts that occur during hemodialysis, this therapy cleans the blood in a more gradual manner.
DIALYSIS
Tests
Our kidney dialysis specialists typically use these tests to monitor how well your treatment is working:
-
Checks the amount of urea (a waste product) in your blood to evaluate kidney function. BUN levels are typically measured before and after a hemodialysis treatment to make sure you are receiving enough dialysis.
-
Samples of your blood and used dialysis solution are analyzed to determine how quickly wastes and fluid are being cleared from your blood during peritoneal dialysis.
-
Used to visualize blood vessels to increase the accuracy and success of vascular access procedures and evaluate if your dialysis portal is working properly. Immediately before beginning procedures to create dialysis ports, our surgeons often request additional ultrasound images. This extra step provides a real-time snapshot of the blood vessels.