Acute neurologic complications of hemodialysis. Study of 14,000 hemodialyses in 103 patients with chronic renal failure.

We have examined and subjected to statistical analysis the transient acute neurological complications arising in the course of hemodialysis in 103 patients with chronic renal failure (13,969 hemodialysis sessions). Our data show that such complications are multiform. Some of the symptoms are aspecific: headache, nausea and/or vomiting, muscle cramps. We have found these symptoms in over 96% of patients, often combined with extraneurological symptoms and phenomena, such as cardiocirculatory shock or increased blood pressure. The other symptoms denote real cerebral impairment: convulsions, consciousness disturbances, psychomotor agitation. They are present in 36% of the patients, but only 10.5% of the patients show a combination of at least two symptoms. In these patients the so-called 'Disequilibrium syndrome' is present: its percentage in our case-series is similar to that reported in literature.