The quest to improve the outcome of NDDRD patients undergoing open heart surgery has been in the agenda of some groups to date. Two pioneering studies were recently published from Turkey (20, 21). The target patient population was NDDRD patients undergoing elective isolated primary CABG surgery. Patients were randomized into two groups prospectively, one group received 2 doses of prophylactic HD just before surgery whereas the other did not, and served as control. Both studies reported reduced operative mortality rates, reduced postoperative need for HD, and shorter length of stay in the prophylactic HD groups. However, these two studies had very limited number of patients with a short period of follow-up, excluded valve surgery, and did not analyse cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, intraoperative ultrafiltration was not studied.