ZBYLUT J. TWARDOWSKI &
BARBARA F. PROWANT

This year the Home Hemodialysis Symposium was expanded to eight sessions with invited speakers, and included two nursing sessions, one patient session, and one session with both patients and health professionals. Aksys, Althin, and Gambro presented their home hemodialysis products in the “Industry Speaks” session. Baxter and Fresenius were also invited to participate. Abstracts were selected for two slide forums and a poster forum. Professor Paul Teschan, MD, was the 1999 winner of the Annual Award for Lifetime Achievements in Hemodialysis.

Volume 3 of Home Hemodialysis International will be published later this year. The review process is being carried out via the Internet. As far as we know, this is the first journal to be edited in this way.

The Symposium on Home Hemodialysis started in Baltimore 4 years ago with two sessions and has since been growing in scope. In Seattle, 3 years ago, there were five slide sessions and a poster session. Starting with the Symposium in Denver, 2 years ago, we published the first volume of the proceedings, Home Hemodialysis International, containing 11 papers. Last year in Nashville, there were 7 slide sessions, and the second volume of Home Hemodialysis International was expanded to include 14 peer-reviewed papers. Professor Vittorio Bonomini, MD, became the first winner of the Annual Award for Lifetime Achievements in Hemodialysis.

Plans are underway for the 6th Symposium on Home Hemodialysis, to be held February 27 – 29, 2000 in San Francisco. We intend to significantly expand the scope of the Symposium and add more sessions with invited speakers. We also want to organize more slide and poster sessions, so we are looking forward to the submission of abstracts related to home hemodialysis or daily hemodialysis.