Peritoneal Dialysis International: Its Origins and Impact

Peritoneal Dialysis International (PDI) started in 1988 as a four‐page document (Peritoneal Dialysis Bulletin) intended to inform all those who visited the Toronto Western Hospital peritoneal dialysis unit about advances in peritoneal dialysis. Soon it became a journal distributed free of charge to 13,000 individuals. Subsequently it became the official publication of the International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis. For many years it was the main forum for publication of the best articles in peritoneal dialysis. As a result, in 1997, its “impact factor” increased to 2.129, putting it in fourth position among the nephrology journals. PDI greatly stimulated the expansion of peritoneal dialysis in the 1980s and 1990s, and remains the main source of knowledge on clinical and investigative aspects of peritoneal dialysis.