This study highlights important factors influencing patient choice of end-stage renal disease treatment modality including CM. While some of these are non-modifiable, such as age and degree of co-morbidity, others draw attention to the importance of good information provision and pre-dialysis education in empowering socially able patients to choose self-care therapies. Furthermore, the overwhelming association of having a strong social support network and being functionally able with choosing PD emphasizes the need for assisted PD.

Background Intravenous pulse methylprednisolone (MP) is commonly included in the management of severe ANCA associated vasculitis (AAV) despite limited evidence of benefit. We aimed to evaluate outcomes in patients who had, or had not received MP, along with standard therapy for remission induction in severe AAV. Methods We retrospectively studied 114 consecutive patients from five centres in Europe and the United States with a new diagnosis of severe AAV (creatinine > 500 μmol/L or dialysis dependency) and that received standard therapy (plasma exchange, cyclophosphamide and high-dose oral corticosteroids) for remission induction with or without pulse MP between 2000 and 2013. We evaluated survival, renal recovery, relapses, and adverse events over the first 12 months. Results Fifty-two patients received pulse MP in addition to standard therapy compared to 62 patients that did not. There was no difference in survival, renal recovery or relapses. Treatment with MP associated with higher risk of infection during the first 3 months (hazard ratio (HR) 2.7, 95%CI [1.4–5.3], p = 0.004) and higher incidence of diabetes (HR 6.33 [1.94–20.63], p = 0.002), after adjustment for confounding factors. Conclusions The results of this study suggest that addition of pulse intravenous MP to standard therapy for remission induction in severe AAV may not confer clinical benefit and may be associated with more episodes of infection and higher incidence of diabetes. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12882-019-1226-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

NCT01633476.