1990 Volume 19 Issue 3 Pages 1025-1027
Treatment of renal failure is most popularized in Japan. Japanese specificity is pointed out to be, firstly, a large number of patientswho undertake the therapy, secondly, a biased dependency upon hemodialysis therapy rather than kidney tranplantation, and thirdly, multiplicity in blood purification modalities utilized for aritifial kidney. However, a one-year survival rate of the maintenance hemodialysis patients has not been improved for last several years. Treatment of the complications which may specifically appear to the long-term hemodialysis patients can be performed not by functional improvement of aritificial kidney, but by development of supplementary medical and surgical techniques. According to the nation-wide registry, almost a half of the hemodialysis patients who died died of cardiac failure and diseases of the cerebral blood vessels. Taking consideration of special lipid metabolism in the long-term hemodialyis patients into account, investigation of pathophysiology and medical correction of abnormal lipid metabolism is anticipated to help the well-being of the hemodialysis patients.
