Background: Long-term peritoneal dialysis (PD) may lead to peritoneal fibrosis and ultrafiltration failure. The latter occurs due to high solute transport rates and diabetiform peritoneal sclerosis. Angiotensin-II (AII) is known to be a growth factor in the development of fibrosis and a number of animal studies have shown it likely that inhibiting the effects of AII by angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) will attenuate these complications.
Objective: To investigate the effects of ACE/AII inhibitors in long-term PD patients.
Patients and setting: We analyzed data from 66 patients treated with PD therapy at our center for at least 2 years, during which time at least 2 standard peritoneal permeability analyses (SPAs) were performed. 36 patients were treated with ACE/AII inhibitors (ACE/ARB group); the other 30 received none of the above drugs during the entire follow-up (control group). The two groups were compared with respect to changes in peritoneal transport over the follow-up time.
Results: A significant difference in time course of peritoneal transport was found between the 2 groups: in the ACE/ARB group, small solute transport had decreased, while it had increased in the control group. This finding was confirmed by analysis using mixed model for repeated measures. The value of mass transfer area coefficient of creatinine was influenced by the duration of PD therapy (p = 0.017) and this interaction was different with respect to use of ACE/AII inhibitors (p = 0.037). The trend was not found in protein clearances or fluid kinetics.
Conclusion: Our findings suggest that ACE/AII inhibition is likely to prevent the increase in mass transfer area coefficients that occurs in long-term PD, which is in line with results of experimental animal studies.