Factors influencing skin autofluorescence of patients with peritoneal dialysis

Skin autofluorescence (SAF) measurement is a simple, noninvasive method to assess tissue advanced glycation end products (AGE). In patients with end-stage renal disease and in those on hemodialysis AGE production is increased. Less is known about those treated with peritoneal dialysis (PD). In this study we tested if SAF is influenced by clinical and treatment characteristics in PD patients.This cross-sectional study included 198 PD patients (of those, 128 were on traditional glucose-based solutions and 70 patients were partially switched to icodextrin-based PD). SAF measurements were done with a specific AGE Reader device. The impact of patients' age, gender, current diabetes, duration of PD, cumulative glucose exposure, body mass index, smoking habits and use of icodextrin on SAF values were tested with multiple regression analysis.Our analysis revealed that patients' age, current diabetes and icodextrin use significantly increase patients' SAF values (p = 0.015, 0.012, 0.005, respectively). AGE exposure of PD patients with diabetes and on icodextrin solution is increased. Further investigation is required whether this finding is due to the icodextrin itself or for a still unspecified clinical characteristic of PD population treated with icodextrin.