Successful Treatment of Itch in Kidney Patients

Uremic pruritus is prevalent amongst dialysis patients and negatively affects their quality of life, sleep, mood and social functioning. The effect of nalbufine on uremic pruritus was presented yesterday at the late breaking clinical trials session. 373 hemodialysis patients were assigned to receive nalbufine 120 mg (n=120), nalbufine 60 mg (n=128) or placebo (n=125) for a period of 6 weeks. Primary outcome was the numerical rating scale of worst itching intensity for each dose of nalbufine versus placebo. Only in the high dose group nalbufine reduced itch intensity by 49%.

Most common adverse events were nausea and vomiting, were not different between dose treatment groups and were attenuated after the second week of treatment. Seems like most of these patients were on conventional anti-pruritic measures such as antihistamines and corticosteroids although this data was not described in detail by the author. This study represents one more potential treatment option for uremic pruritus and quality of life improvement in dialysis patients although long term efficacy and safety would need to be determined. Post by Dr. Magdalena Madero, AJKD Blog Contributor.