Peritoneal Dialysis: A Look at the Future

Abstract

Several factors may be responsible for the insufficient diffusion of peritoneal dialysis (PD) in Italy, including the lack of cultural understanding, organizational problems, and inappropriate health policies. Therefore, different approaches have been proposed to face these issues leading to a wider use of this technique. Among these strategies we think that a key role should be played by the promotion of educational initiatives mostly addressed to young nephrologists. At the same time, development of new technologies, such as domotics and web-based applications, might help to make PD more acceptable and suitable for both patients and physicians. These are some of the most important challenges to promote PD growth in the future.