Osteodystrophy in Indonesian haemodialysis patients

A preliminary study of the intact-parathyroid hormone (i-PTH) measurements from haemodialysis patients was conducted to determine the prevalence of renal bone diseases at the Dr Soetomo Hospital. The objective of this study is to evaluate the osteodystrophy renal pattern in haemodialysis patients using i-PTH and radiological parameters. The selected populations of 48 (32 males and 16 females), the mean age 48 ± 10.3 years, was evaluated to conduct a cross-sectional study. The calorimetric method was applied to measure serum P and Ca, while a radioimmunoassay was used to assay the i-PTH level. Of those 48 patients receiving haemodialysis, with a duration ranging from 4 to 432 weeks, 61% had hypocalcaemia and 10% had hypercalcaemia. The i-PTH levels below 100 pg/mL (normal, 10-65 pg/mL) suggested 'aplastic' bone, and values of 100-200 pg/mL most commonly indicated 'normal' bone turnover. The i-PTH levels over 200 pg/mL suggested hyperparathyroidism. The results of this study demonstrated that 42% of those patients had <100 pg/mL (low turnover bone presumed, no biopsy), 23% had 100-<200 pg/mL ('normal' bone turnover) and 35% of them had >200 pg/mL (hyperparathyroidism'). In addition, the radiological study showed that 10% of those patients were positive for renal bone diseases. In conclusion, this study shows that the common type of renal osteodystrophy was of a low turnover type, which was different from the findings in other previous studies. It is postulated that this difference is likely to be caused by some factors such as the general health condition of the population those patients belong to and, in particular, the nutritional status of those patients.