What are your strategies for safely prescribing peritoneal dialysis for patients who have pets at home?
Pets are an important part of many people's lives, giving comfort, joy, relaxation, companionship, and even providing opportunities for exercise - therefore we should not exclude patients from home dialysis simply due to the presence of pets in the home.
Some key strategies to help reduce PD complic...
I agree with Dr. @Dr. First Last's approach. Note that a recent study (Boudville et al., PMID 36601674) found no increase in peritonitis among PD patients owning a SINGLE pet, though owners of both a cat and dog- there was no data available regarding multiple pets of the same type- did have a higher...
The main strategy is to make sure that patients understand the risk of zoonotic peritonitis if they are having pets in the house. We advise patients to keep pets away from the area where they are performing their dialysis (nowadays, mostly cyclers) and to be extra cautious in terms of cleaning all s...