Interrelationship between cardiac structure and function and incidence of arrhythmia in peritoneal dialysis patients

Cardiovascular complications in patients with end-stage renal disease requi ring dialytic therapy are frequent and account for approximately 40% of all deaths in these patients. The aim of this study was to analyze the occurre nce of cardiac arrhythmia in peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients with respect to the changes in left ventricular structure and function. To determine ch aracteristics of arrhythmia in patients on PD for chronic renal failure, 30 patients (18 male and 12 female; aged 54.1+/-13.8 years) underwent twice ( interval of 20+/-4.1 months) ambulatory 24 hour Holter ECG monitoring. At t he same time all the patients were analyzed by echocardiography and pulsed Doppler echocardiography to estimate cardiac structure and function. Ventri cular arrhythmias were seen in 9 patients (30%) during the first examinatio n and in 13 patients (43.3%) on the second. Ventricular arrhythmias were ob served only in patients with left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). Supraventr icular arrhythmias were seen in 12 (40%) and 17 (56.7%) patients. The major ity of these patients also had LVH, with 11/12 (91.7%) patients at the firs t examination and 15/17 (88.2%) at the second respectively. We conclude tha t the incidence of arrhythmia is primarily dependent on the presence of LVH in PD patients. It appears that peritoneal dialysis does not provoke or ag gravate arrhythmia.