Nocardia Peritonitis — a Case Report and Literature Review

groups. Use of icodextrin in patients on PD has been shown to lead to substantial improvement in QOL at 13 weeks (7). In a recent study using the SF-36 survey to evaluate QOL in patients on CAPD, role limitations due to physical health showed a lower score, while mental health showed a higher score (8). Chen et al. compared QOL in patients undergoing chronic PD with adequate and inadequate solute clearance (9). It was found that patients with adequate total solute clearance had significantly higher scores in both physical and mental domains of the SF-36 than the patients with inadequate total solute clearance. The total SF-36 scores were more positively correlated with Kt/V urea. In our study, it was found that patients with adequate total solute clearance had significantly higher scores in both physical and mental domains of SF-36 than patients with inadequate total solute clearance. The total SF-36 scores were more positively correlated with Kt/V urea. Also in our study, higher Kt/V urea in patients during therapy with APD may have been responsible for the positive trend seen in some of the parameters of mental QOL. The sequential nature of mode of therapy in the same group of patients may be helpful in excluding the effect of various demographic variables that may influence outcome. To conclude, the present study demonstrated that, among ESRD patients having high/high-average membrane transport characteristics, there was no significant difference in various parameters of physical and mental QOL while the patients were on therapy with CAPD or APD, although there was positive trend in some of the parameters of mental QOL during APD therapy. Higher weekly urea clearance while on APD therapy may be responsible for such a trend.