There are about 1,000 new nephrosis cases in Hong Kong every year which need haemodialysis and kidney transplant. At the early stages of the disease, the main and general treatment is to lighten the burden of kidney, enabling it to have the opportunity to rest to improve its function. This includes having bed rest and controlling diet to control the ingestion of moisture, sodium salt and protein. However, when the kidney function declines continuously, and patients start to have high blood pressure, dropsy and other symptoms, medicines like hypotensor and diuretic must be used to control the symptoms. Different pharmacological treatment such as adrenalin (or known as overweight person pill), cytotoxicity medicine (cyclosporine Cydosporin A and sulfur azole purine Azathioprine), blood platelet depolymerization medicine or antifreeze medicine may also be prescribed.

The symptoms in the majority patients at their initial stage of the disease can be effectively controlled and the doctor can assess patients’ condition by having regular blood and urine inspection and assessments. Some patients may have renal failure (i.e. the kidneys can only function at less than 10%) due to aggravation of disease. But when the kidney is unable to deal with the body’s normal excretion demand, patients must start to receive dialysis treatment in replacement of the kidney.Nevertheless, dialysis treatment can only substitute part of the kidney function and renal transplant is still the most recommended method of curing nephrosis.

Dialysis treatment includes peritoneal dialysis and haemodialysis:

Peritoneal dialysis

Commonly known as “stomach washing”, through pouring dialyzate using the drive pipe into the peritoneum, and using the peritoneum as the platform for osmosis, the extra moisture and waste for example urotoxin and creatinine and other waste will be transferred to the dialyzate by osmosis. The dialyzate will then be drained out of the body. This procedure will operate three to four times, each time one to two hours every day to replace the excretory function of the kidneys. Peritoneal dialysis affects the patient’s daily life seriously (such as work) and it may easily bring about complications.

Haemodialysis

Haemodialysis is commonly known as “blood washing”. This can be carried out at a haemodialysis centre, home or hospital. First, the blood is drawn out of the body to a dialysis machine by a drive pipe. Then, the wastes and excessive water in the blood are removed by an artificial kidney. Finally, the purified blood is transferred into the blood stream inside the body. The haemodialysis machine can temporarily or permanently replace the excretory function of the kidneys.

Haemodialysis is a long-term treatment, where the renal patients need to receive twice or three times of treatments every week, so that the balance of the blood pressure and chemicals can be maintained. The treatment takes 4 to 6 hours depending on the physical conditions of the patient. During the haemodialysis process, the patient can read, watch the television or browse the Internet as usual. Since the price for peritoneal dialysis is lower than that for haemodialysis, only 25% of the renal patients are able to afford haemodialysis.