Effect of different dialysis duration on the prognosis of peritoneal dialysis-associated peritonitis: a single-center, retrospective study

Background Peritoneal dialysis (PD)-associated peritonitis is a serious complication observed in peritoneal dialysis patients. Herein, we investigated the clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes of PD peritonitis in patients with different PD durations. Methods All peritonitis episodes from January 2007 to December 2020 at Peking University People's hospital PD center were retrospectively analyzed and divided into the long-dialysis duration (>= 60 months, LDD) and short-dialysis duration (<60 months, SDD) groups. Clinical characteristics and outcomes were compared between these groups. The risk factors for treatment failure were analyzed using a logistic regression model. Results During 14 years, 156 patients had 267 peritonitis episodes. There were 83 (31.1%) peritonitis episodes in the LDD group and 184 (68.9%) in the SDD group. No statistical difference was noted in peritonitis causes and the composition of causative pathogens between the two groups. The hospitalization, treatment failure, and transfer-to-hemodialysis rates, and peritonitis-related mortality were significantly higher in the LDD group than in the SDD group (all p < .05). Logistic regression analysis revealed that PD duration was an independent risk factor for PD-associated hospitalization, treatment failure and peritonitis-related death (p < .05). The receiver operating characteristic curve analysis results showed that when the cutoff value of PD duration was 5.5 years, the sensitivity of predicting PD peritonitis treatment failure was 51.1%, specificity was 78.8%, and the area under the curve was 0.679 (95% confidence interval: 0.594-0.765, p < .001). Conclusions PD duration is an independent risk factor for poor prognosis in PD peritonitis. Careful and active attention should be paid to the prevention of peritonitis in PD patients with long PD duration.