Outcomes in dialysis: a global assessment

More than 50 years have passed since the first uremic patient was treated with hemodialysis (HD). Soon after, HD was available to treat acute renal failure. However, maintenance HD did not become a reality for patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) before 1960, when indwelling arteriovenous Teflon shunt therapy, or Quinton-Scribner shunt therapy, was developed. At about the same time advances in immunosuppression, such as the development of 6-mercaptopurine and its derivative, azathioprine sodium, led to the modern era of kidney transplantation.