"The reasons for this regrettable development are obvious: difficulties in establishing dry weight and insufficient awareness of latent overhydration. To prevent this, dietary salt restriction is the most logical step. The ease with which fluid can be removed in peritoneal dialysis together with the residual excretion capacity of the own kidneys has led to negligence of salt restriction, while liberal protein intake is encouraged to compensate for the loss of albumin by the peritoneum. Patients were told that the advantage of this mode of treatment was that they could eat and drink as much as they liked. In fact, currently advised salt intake ranges from 130 to 175 mmol/day or even higher. In view of the evidence of overhydration in the majority of peritoneal dialysis patients such advises are not justified.
Apart from the frequent difficulties to withdraw the necessary amounts of fluid due to outflow problems and loss of ultrafiltration capacity of the peritoneal surface, it seems likely that the possibilities offered by the peritonealdialysis technique are often not sufficiently exploited ..."