A simple and practical method for assessing the adequacy of hemodialysis.

The authors plotted the values of the postdialysis/predialysis blood urea nitrogen ratio, R, of 104 functionally anephric maintenance hemodialysis patients against the Kt/V values that had been derived from a single-pool, variable-volume, urea kinetic modeling method. When the R value was less than or equal to 0.4, the Kt/V value was consistently greater than or equal to 1.0. Maintaining an R value below 0.4 would ensure that Kt/V would never be less than 1.0. When a Kt/V value of greater than 1 is desired, an R value of less than 0.4 should be the goal.