In the Literature: On Clinical Performance Measures and Outcomes Among Hemodialysis Patients

(A) Probability of death or first nonfatal myocardial infarction in dialysis patients treated with erythropoietin randomly allocated to high and low hematocrit levels. (B) Mean mortality rate (+/− SE) as a function of the average achieved hematocrit in the normal and low hematocrit groups in dialysis patients treated with erythropoietin. Both panels reproduced with permission from Besarab et al⁷; copyright © 1998 Massachusetts Medical Society, all rights reserved.

(A) Cumulative survival in hemodialysis patients randomly allocated to high dose of dialysis (urea reduction of about 75% or single pool Kt/V of about 1.65) and to standard dose (urea reduction of about 65% or single pool Kt/V of 1.25). Reproduced with permission from Eknoyan et al¹¹; copyright © 2002 Massachusetts Medical Society, all rights reserved. (B) Association of mortality with the most recent 4 month mean equilibrated Kt/V (e Kt/V). Shown are the adjusted relative risks (RR; and 95% confidence intervals[CI]) of mortality within each of the 5 quintiles of the 4-month average e KT/V values of the standard-dose group and the first, second, fourth, and fifth quintiles of the high dose group, with the middle quintile of the high-dose group as reference. Reproduced with permission from Greene et al¹²; copyright © 2005 American Society of Nephrology.