A portable dialysis machine could liberate millions
Posted 07.18.2008 at 3:22 pm
5 Comments
The Two Machines
Gura models his wearable dialysis machine. An ordinary hospital dialysis machine, at left.
Landstuhli ; UCLA
For the 1.3 million people who suffer renal failure each year, kidney dialysis is a major undertaking. The lengthy out-patient process requires near-daily trips to the doctor’s office to be hooked up for hours to a massive machine; making it difficult to hold a job or have a normal social life. But Victor Gura of UCLA’s Geffen School of medicine has patented and tested the holy grail of nephrology: a portable, wearable dialysis machine. His WAK (Wearable Artificial Kidney) won’t win any fashion awards—the bulky 10-pound machine looks like Batman’s utility belt on steroids. But it does allow end-stage kidney disease suffers to live semi-normal lives.
Gura claims wearers can shower, walk, work, and even get it on while wearing the WAK. A miniature circulating pump pushes the wearer's blood through a filter and special chemicals that leach impurities from the blood before circulating it back into the body. The filter needs to be replaced only once a week and new chemicals are added daily. The belt, tested on five men and three women last year and given a thumbs up in the British medical journal The Lancet, may also have an advantage over traditional methods since patients do better with daily dialysis instead of the usual three to five times a week.
Last week, another group at the Geffen School of Medicine released its own version of the wearable kidney. Instead of pumping the blood outside the body to be cleansed, the transaction happens on a continual basis inside the peritoneum. This “bloodless” version is designed to function more like a human kidney, and has already been licensed to a Singapore company, though there’s no word on when it will be ready for use. For Gura, this spells competition, but it's the type of race that should make his patients most happy.
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Great news if it works. Just wondering about the 'normal ' life however.
I have known a few dialysis patients, and the process seems to use uo a great deal of their energy. I worked with one fellow who amazed the docs because he could continue to work. However, it took his toll. His energy levels were often very low, and he would frequently doze off.
Not trying to be negative, I just wonder if the portability alone is enough.
ford2go, maybe the portability is not enough, but at least it's a good step towards the solution.
the next step should be replacing those chemicals, i suppose.
-Dexter-
The problem is that the inept nephrologists have no clue how the kidneys actually work. It's an electrical machine, people! Proximal tubules and distal tubules have interiors with different potential differences, voltages. What happens when that happens? Well, silly rabbit, charged particles are drawn to areas of opposite charge! We learn it in 4th grade, nephrologists skipped 4th grade.
I see a salt bridge in the loop of Henle, an honest to goodness pacemaker right there on the kidney, jg cells that could only work as electrical rheostats, the proximal juxtaposition of distal and proximal tubules, reactions resulting in potential differences and I say: battery/fuel cell.
Nephrologists see those things and say, duh.
The problem is that the inept nephrologists have no clue how the kidneys actually work. It's an electrical machine, people! Proximal tubules and distal tubules have interiors with different potential differences, voltages. What happens when that happens? Well, silly rabbit, charged particles are drawn to areas of opposite charge! We learn it in 4th grade, nephrologists skipped 4th grade.
I see a salt bridge in the loop of Henle, an honest to goodness pacemaker right there on the kidney, jg cells that could only work as electrical rheostats, the proximal juxtaposition of distal and proximal tubules, reactions resulting in potential differences and I say: battery/fuel cell.
Nephrologists see those things and say, duh? Wha?
What is the current prduction cost.
http://the.nerd.herd.group.googlepages.com/