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Doctors newspaper online, 04.10.2019
In Development
Researchers are developing a portable artificial kidney that will enable patients with kidney disease to undergo mobile dialysis.
ROSTOCK. In a dialysis, yes, significant amounts of cleansing dialysis water are required. So far there is no solution to recover this dialysate cost.
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI are therefore developing a new method that can not only reduce costs – a wearable "artificial kidney" for gentler, water-borne long-term dialysis is also conceivable, as the IZI reports.
About 400 liters of dialysate are needed for a dialysis treatment. Clinics and dialysis clinics provide this water through reverse osmosis systems, which consume a lot of energy and are expensive. In addition, the dialysate can be used only once, as it disappears after the blood wash as wastewater.
"Over one year and 90,000 patients require more than 5.6 million cubic meters of ultrapure water," says the IZI. The researchers around Dr. Rainer Goldau rely on cryogenic cleaning, which is based on the freezing concentration known from the beverage industry. Cryoproduction is said to recover more than 90 percent of the water recovered from the patient.
Little energy required
The method uses the principle that the crystal lattice structure of frozen water excludes all previously dissolved foreign substances. "The ice crystals formed when freezing water can prevent contamination. The uremic toxins could be filtered out, "Goldau is quoted in the message.
This can be achieved with a wash column; for dialysis, a small column is sufficient. To prepare the fresh dialysate, only little energy is required.
"Our form of dialysis can even be made mobile, portable hemodialysis would be possible," reports Goldau. His vision: The patient receives a vascular connection, through which blood and excess water are taken and at the same time returned. This is fed into a vest with a dialysis filter membrane containing replaceable, up to four liter, water chambers.
The patient connects the vest every two to three hours with the portable washing unit, which exchanges the old dialysate for fresh dialysis water. This would not take longer than going to the toilet with healthy people. The process is already pending. The researchers are currently working on an automated solution. (eb)
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