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During the congress, E-Posters will be accessible to all participants on the congress website 24/7, as well as in the E-poster stations in the congress center.
Preparing your E-Poster
Please review the E-Poster format requirements carefully when preparing your E-Poster. Should your E-Poster not meet the mentioned requirements, it may not be displayed as described above.
E-Poster Submission Deadline
Please prepare and upload your E-Poster no later than March 14, 2026 11.59PM CET. After this date, you will no longer be able to prepare and upload your E-poster and it will not be displayed and accessible on the congress website.
Please follow the instructions below to input your abstract title.
Abstract titles should be brief and reflect the content of the abstract.
Patients undergoing hemodialysis face an elevated risk of cardiac arrhythmias. This heightened risk has been closely associated with both high and low pre-dialysis potassium (K) levels. Guidelines have been established to maintain K levels between 4 - 6 mEq/L. However, interventions when pre-dialysis K levels are persistently below 4 mEq/L do not always yield successful outcomes. Traditionally, these patients are transitioned to a dialysate containing a K bath of 3 mmol/L, along with recommendations to follow a potassium-rich diet. Nonetheless, generic non-specific dietary guidelines often fail due to noncompliance. To address this challenge, we developed an innovative targeted dietary potassium supplementation strategy using bananas, especially for those who consistently showed pre-dialysis K levels below 4 mEq/L, despite standard treatment. Bananas, which offer 20 mmol of K in a single 200g serving, are known for their capacity to raise serum K levels within 30-60 minutes of consumption, due to their extended gastric emptying.
This study was a retrospective single-center audit. Its objective was to evaluate the efficacy of targeted dietary potassium supplementation in maintaining potassium levels within the desired range. The study included adult hemodialysis patients over the age of 18 who had monthly pre-dialysis potassium levels below 4 mEq/L for three consecutive months, despite receiving standard treatment. Patients who were suspected of having potassium-losing tubulopathy, low serum magnesium levels, or chronic diarrhea were excluded. All participants were already receiving K3 dialysate in conjunction with potassium-rich dietary supplements. Furthermore, each participant was provided with a portion of banana (200g/20mmol) immediately prior to each dialysis session, three times a week for a duration of three months. Pre-dialysis potassium levels were assessed through laboratory testing conducted every mid-month.
A total of 30 patients satisfied the inclusion criteria. Throughout the 3-month follow-up duration, 80% of participants who consumed the banana-based dietary supplement three times weekly successfully maintained their pre-dialysis potassium levels above 4 mEq/L but below 5 mEq/L. Every patient indicated that the regimen was enjoyable, straightforward, and therefore convenient to adhere to. The graph below depicts the variations in the median potassium levels of patients prior to and following the intervention.
The preliminary short-term results of our intervention were notably safe and cost-efficient; however, additional validation is required before more definitive conclusions can be made regarding the long-term effectiveness and safety of using bananas for targeted potassium replacement. Our research did have certain limitations, including possible confounding variables such as malnutrition and inflammation. Furthermore, the quantities of bananas provided were not customised according to the participants' BMI (Body Mass Index). Nonetheless, in spite of these limitations, the results carry significant implications for sustaining pre-dialysis potassium levels within the advised range, particularly when non specific diatery advice fails.
