Hemorheological alterations in patients with chronic renal failure. Effectof hemodialysis

The rheological profile of 45 patients who had kidney failure and were unde rgoing periodical hemodialysis was studied to ascertain whether they showed rheological alterations and if these alterations improved after hemodialys is. Our results indicate that the patients studied suffer rheological alter ations with respect to the control group, specifically increased plasma fib rinogen (436 +/- 119 vs 271 +/- 43 mg/dl, p < 0.001), increased plasma visc osity (1.30 +/- 0.10 vs 1.22 +/- 0.05 mPa.s, p < 0.001), higher erythrocyte aggregability (8.3 +/- 1.2 vs 7.4 +/- 1.4, p < 0.01) and a lower hematocri t (31.2 +/- 5.9 vs 43.4 +/- 3.7, p < 0.001), In contrast, erythrocyte defor mability did not seem to be altered with respect to the control group. The analyses carried out immediately after hemodialysis showed that in general the rheological profile worsened during this treatment; then was a signific ant increase in fibrinogen and in plasma viscosity. The rheological alterat ions detected may play a role in the development of the atherosclerosis pro cesses often experienced by these patients.