| [ Summary ] |
The subcommittee of the Japanese Society of Dialysis and Transplantation summarized clinical data of patients treated using home hemodialysis (HD) in Japan. It revealed that the patient's survival rate as well as their ability to return to their social work environment compared well in cases where home HD was used, rather than hospital HD. Therefore, the usefulness of home HD in raising patient's QOL was ascertained. In order to popularize home HD in Japan, however, various important problems remain to be solved. Those are 1) settlement of criteria for patient selection, 2) establishment of an educational system and period of use, 3) creating a dialysis center network, 4) authorization for injection of drugs by patients themselves, 5) countermeasures for medical waste handling and cost-setting, 6) development of inexpensive and secure dialysis machine. |