The problems with hemodialysis

Almost all patients who receive hemodialysis for kidney failure have multiple medical conditions including:

• Fatigue
• Poor appetite
• Anemia
• Hypertension
• Inflammation (i.e. low serum albumin, failure to gain weight, loss of muscle)
• High serum phosphorus
• Progressive atherosclerosis
• Cardiovascular disorders
• Dialysis vascular access complications (clotting).

All these medical conditions contribute to cause a mortality of up to 20% in patients receiving hemodialysis for chronic or permanent kidney failure and a much higher rate in patients receiving hemodialysis for acute or temporary kidney failure.

In addition, these medical conditions contribute to the exorbitant cost of the care of dialysis patients. For example, the cost of care of patients with chronic or permanent kidney failure in the USA was $35B in 2007 and it has been increasing 7-10% per year. The cost of care of a Medicare patient with kidney failure is about 6 times higher than a Medicare patient without kidney failure. In 2010 the care of these patients consumed over 10% of the entire Medicare budget of over $500B. About 40% of this sum pays for care of medical complications and about 60% for dialysis care. The cost of care is increasing all over the world because the number of patients receiving dialysis (at present is about 1.7 M) is growing 7% per year because of the aging population, increased incidences of kidney disease, hypertension and diabetes and the increased availability of dialysis throughout the world.

The cause of these problems

BME has discovered that the poor design of several devices used in hemodialysis contributes to cause many of these problems because the devices cause high velocity and turbulence of the blood. The high velocity and turbulence of the blood damage blood cells (white cells, red cells and platelets), cause inflammation and oxidative stress, and inflammation and oxidative stress cause medical complications. Learn more >>