Dialysis treatment vital to keeping kidney disease patients alive could end up killing them, health officials warned.
For patients with kidney failure, mechanically cleansing the blood outside the body three times a week is the only way they can stay alive. However, the long-term access site needed to draw and return blood to the body can weaken and fail, according to an alert from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene?s Office of Health Care Quality.
Nearly two dozen kidney dialysis patientsin Maryland have bled to death since 2000, causing health specialists to issue a warning in order to avoid more fatalities.
Dr. David Fowler, the state?s chief medical examiner, said the majority of the 22 deaths happened while patients were at home alone and started bleeding.
Fowler noticed a pattern and investigated to see if any fault existed in the deaths. Although no blame was found, his office notified the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
“Our job is to identify a cause of death. When you see a cluster like that, it?s appropriate to bring it to the medical community?s attention,” he said.
By sharing the information, he hopes patients might learn to save themselves.
“There is the potential for survival in these cases, if you are educated appropriately,” Fowler said. “That is what we were hoping to do with
this. Every life is precious. Even if what we do saves one person, for that particular person, it?s a big deal.”
The warning has gone to dialysis centers statewide, said Wendy Kronmiller, director of the state Office of Health Care Quality.
Dialysis patients die from many different causes, and this one is very rare, said Dr. Donna Hanes, a nephrologist at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.
“Bottom line, within the renal community, we lose a patient every year or so because of an issue like that,” she said. “It?s an important issue, but it?s being blown out of proportion.”
