This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Renal Diseases  • Acute Renal Failure  • Dialysis  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: Dr Bliwise and colleagues¹ found that patients who received dialysis in the morning had lower mortality rates than those who received dialysis in the afternoon. My clinical experiences suggest an explanation. I have noticed that dialysis times are not assigned randomly. Priority assignment for morning dialysis often goes to patients who can return to their previous employment. Bliwise et al, however, do not provide occupational histories for these patients. Perhaps patients who cannot return to work are sicker and therefore have decreased survival. Also, patients most recently starting maintenance hemodialysis frequently are assigned to the afternoon or evening dialysis slots because there may not be available times in the morning period. Recent onset of hemodialysis may be a marker for patients who were recently hospitalized and have comorbid conditions that independently increase the risk of mortality.

Stuart Oserman, MD
Advocate Lutheran General Hospital
Park Ridge, Ill

1. Bliwise DL, Kutner N, Zhang R, Parker KP. Survival by time of day of hemodialysis in an elderly cohort. JAMA. 2001;286:2690-2694. FREE FULL TEXT

To . . . [Full Text of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLE

Survival by Time of Day of Hemodialysis in an Elderly Cohort
Donald L. Bliwise, Nancy G. Kutner, Rebecca Zhang, and Kathy P. Parker
JAMA. 2001;286(21):2690-2694.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT