Short PET in pediatric peritoneal dialysis

Peritoneal equilibration test (PET) is a common technique used in children to evaluate peritoneal membrane transport capacity and adequate the dialysis regimen. Considering that this is a laborious test, a shortened version has been proposed. Our goal was to evaluate the concordance between the 2-h (short) and 4-h (classical) PET values to determine whether the short PET could be used in the clinical setting. Eighty-one PET corresponding to 81 peritoneal dialysis patients from two pediatric nephrology centers were retrospectively analyzed. Peritoneal transport capacity was evaluated using the dialysate to plasma ratio (D/P) of creatinine and the ratio of dialysate glucose to baseline dialysate glucose (D/D₀) at 2 and 4 h. The mean [± standard deviation (SD)] creatinine D/P ratio at 2 and 4 h were 0.41 ± 0.13 and 0.66 ± 0.17, respectively, and the mean (± SD) D/D₀ glucose were 0.64 ± 0.11 and 0.39 ± 0.12 at the same times. Applying McNemar χ² test to evaluate the association between the categories obtained at 2 and 4 h, we found no relationship between the 2- and 4-h PET for both D/P and D/D₀ (p > 0.05). These results suggest that the use of this abbreviated test is probably not reliable for estimating the transport capacity of the peritoneal membrane in the pediatric population.